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OXFORD 



OXFORD 



DESCRIBED BY 

ROBERT PEEL 

AND 

H. C. MINCHIN 



WITH lOO ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR 



NEW YORK 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1906 



/^3 ^^5 






'7 



CONTENTS 









PAGE 


Prefatory Note 


• 




xi 


Oldest Oxford 






I 


The University and its Building 


s 




7 


St. Mary's Church . 






15 


The Cathedral 






19 


The Streets of Oxford . 






27 


The River . . . . 






35 


Merton College 






41 


University College . 






47 


Balliol College 






51 


Exeter College 






57 


Oriel College 






61 


Queen's College 






. 65 


St. Edmund Hall 






. 69 


New College . 






71 


Lincoln College 






79 


All Souls College . 






• 83 


Magdalen College . 






. 87 


Brasenose College . 

V 






97 



VI 



CONTENTS 



Corpus Christi College 






PAGE 


Christ Church 






107 


Trinity College 








117 


St. John's College 








121 


Jesus College. 








125 


Wadham College 








129 


Pembroke College 








133 


Worcester College 








137 


Hertford College 








. 141 


Keble College 








143 



LIST OF THE 
100 ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR 



Spires of Oxford . By Mr. W. S. S. Tyrwhitt Frontispiece 
The Old Tower . . .By Ackermann Facing page 2 
Saxon Tower of St. Michael's Church, 

Cornmarket Street, Oxford. 

By Miss Cheesewright ,, ,, 3 
Divinity School . . . By Ackermann ,, ,, 8 
Bodleian Library ... ,, ,, 

The Radcliffe Library — Interior ,, ,, 

The New Schools . . By Mr. W. Matthison ,, 
Entrance to Clarendon and Shel- 

donian ,, ,, 

The Porch, St. Mary's, High Street ,, ,, 

All Souls College and St. Mary's 

Church „ „ 

The Cathedral— Outside View . ,, „ 

The Cathedral, Christ Church. 

By Miss Cheesewright „ 
Saxon Chapel, Shrine of St. Frideswide, 

Christ Church, Oxford. By Mrs. C. R. Walton , , 
Interior, Christ Church Cathedral ,, ,, 

Latin Chapel, Christ Church. 

By Mr. W. S. S. Tyrwhitt „ 
Tomb of Lady Montacute and Shrine 

OF St. Frideswide, Christ Church 

Cathedral . . By Mrs. C. R. Walton „ 
Tomb of Sir George Nowers in Christ 

Church . . .By Miss Cheesewright „ 
High Street AND Carfax. By Mr. W. Matthison ,, 
Carfax Church, FROM " The High " ,, ,, ,, 29 



9 
10 
II 

12 
16 

17 
19 

20 

21 

22 

23 



24 

25 

28 



VIU 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



"TheTurl" . . By Mr. W. Matthison Facing page 

Sunset in the High Street . 

Broad Street .... 

The Martyrs' Memorial 

St. Giles and Martyrs' Memorial 

The Summer "Eights" . 

The River and Barges . 

The River Cherwell, from the Parks. 

By Mr. Bayzant 

The River Cherwell, below 

THE Parks ?> 

The Barges . . .By Mr. W. Matthison 

Merton Street . . . • jj 

Merton College Library. By Mrs. C. R. Walton 

Merton College Quadrangle. 

By Mr. W. Matthison 

University College, from "The 
High" .... 

University College 

Broad Street and Balliol College 

Balliol College and St. Giles 

Part of Balliol College 

Balliol College Quadrangle 

Exeter College Quadrangle 

Exeter College Chapel . 

Oriel Street .... 

Oriel College— Outside 

Oriel College— Inside . 

Queen's College and "The High 

Queen's College Gateway 

St. Edmund's Hall, Queen's, and 
St. Peter's-in-the-East . 

St. Edmund's Hall . 

St. Edmund's Hall, Inside Quad- 
rangle .... 



30 

31 

32 

33 

34 '^ 

36' 

37^ 

38^ 

/ 
39 
40 ' 

41 

42 

43^ 

48', 
49 y 

52 ' 

53 ' 
54 
55 

58^ 
59^ 
61 • 
62 

63 
66 

67 

69 
70 

71 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ix 



New College . . By Mr, W. Matthison Faci 

New College, Entrance Quadrangle ,, 

City Wall, New College Garden ,, 

New College Cloisters. By Miss Cheesewright 

View from Cloisters, New College ,, 

New College Window . . By Ackermann 

New College from Holywell Street. 

By Mr. W. Matthison 
Lincoln and Exeter College . ,, 
Lincoln College, Inside Quad- 
rangle ,, 

Radcliffe Library, Schools, and 

All Souls ,, 

The Reredos, All Souls Chapel ,, 
Magdalen Tower and Bridge . ,, 
Magdalen Tower, from Addison's 

Walk ,, 

The Outside Stone Pulpit, Magdalen College. 

By Mrs. Walton 
The Founder's Tower, Magdalen College. 

By Mr. W. Matthison 
Magdalen College Garden . . ,, 
Magdalen Tower . . . . ,, 
The Deer Park, Magdalen College ,, 
St. Mary's Entry and Brasenose 

College . . . . ,, 

The Gateway and Tower, Brasenose 

College ,, 

Brasenose College Quadrangle . ,, 
Brasenose College, the Old Quad- 
rangle ,, 

Brasenose College, the Inner Quad- 
rangle ,, 

Merton Tower and Corpus Christi 
Gateway ,, 



tgpage 72 
73 
74 
75 
76 

11 



78 ' 
80 

81 -^ 

84 
85 
87" 

88 



90 

91 
92 

93 ^ 

97 ' 

98 ^ 
99^ 

/ 
100 

loi ' 

104 • 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Corpus Christi Quadrangle. 

By Mr. W. Matthison Facing page 

Christ Church ....,, ,, ,, 

Tom Tower, Christ Church . . „ „ „ 

Tom Quadrangle, Christ Church „ „ „ 
Peckwater Quadrangle, Christ 

Church „ »> „ 

The Canterbury Gate, Christ 

Church College . . . „ » »» 

Christ Church Hall and Staircase ,, ,, ,, 

The Back of Christ Church Hall ,, j? >» 

Hall of Christ Church . By Ackermann ,, ,, 

Trinity College . By Mr. W. Matthison „ „ 
Trinity College Gate and Chapel, 

FROM THE Broad . . . „ »» 5? 

St. John's College Entrance . ,, ,, ,, 

St. John's College Gateway . . ,, » »» 

St. John's College, FROM THE Garden ,, „ ,, 
Part of St. John's College, from Garden. 

By Mrs. Walton ,, ,, 
Corner of Jesus College Quadrangle 

By Mr. W. Matthison „ „ 

Jesus College, within Quadrangle ,, ,, ,, 

Wadham College, from the Garden ,, ,, ,, 

Wadham College . . . . ,, >» )> 

Pembroke College Gateway . . ,, ?> » 

Pembroke College Quadrangle . ,, „ „ 

Worcester College . . . ,, j? »> 

Cottages, Worcester College Garden „ „ ,, 

The Lake Worcester Gardens . ,, „ „ 

Hertford College — Exterior . „ ,, ,, 

Hertford College Quadrangle . ,, ,, „ 

Keble College Gate . . . ,, >, »> 

Keble College, from the Parks . ,, ,, ,, 

{^Copyright. All Rights Reserved. '\ 



105/ 

io8 

109 

IIO^ 



III 

112 

113 
114 

115 
118 

119 
121 

122 
123 

124/ 

126 
127 ^ 
130' 
131^ 

134/ 

135'^ 

137 

138 

139. 

141' 

142 

143 ' 
144 



PREFATORY NOTE 

nr^HIS volume is not intended to com- 
pete with any existing guides to 
Oxford : it is not a guide-book in any 
formal or exhaustive sense. Its purpose 
is to shew forth the chief beauties of the 
University and City, as they have appeared 
to several artists ; with such a running com- 
mentary as may explain the pictures, and 
may indicate whatever is most interesting 
in connection with the scenes which they 
represent. Slight as the notes are, there 
has been no sacrifice, it is believed, of 
accuracy. The principal facts have been 
derived from Alexander Chalmers' History 
of the Colleges^ Halls^ and Public Buildings 
of the University of Oxford^ from Mr. 



xii PREFATORY NOTE 

Lang's Oxford, and from the Oxford and 
its Colleges of Mr. J. Wells. 

The Illustrations, with the exception of 
six only, which are derived from Acker- 
mann's Oxford, are reproduced from the 
paintings of living artists, mostly by Mr. 
W. Matthison, the others by Mrs. C. R. 
Walton, Walter S. S. Tyrwhitt, Mr. Bayzant, 
and Miss E. S. Cheesewright. 



\ 



\ 



OXFORD 

ILLUSTRATED IN COLOUR 
WITH DESCRIPTIONS 

OLDEST OXFORD 

/^^XFORD is so naturally associated 
^-^ with the idea of a University, and 
the Collegiate buildings which confront one 
at every turn have such an ancient appear- 
ance, that a stranger might be excused for 
thinking that the University is older than 
the town, and that the latter grew up as 
an adjunct to the former. Of course, the 
slightest examination of facts suffices to 
dissipate this notion. Oxford is a town 
of great antiquity, which may well have 
been in existence in Alfred the Great's 
time, though there is not a shred of docu- 
mentary evidence to prove that he was, as 
tradition so long asserted, connected with 



2 OXFORD 

the foundation of a university there : it 
certainly existed in the reign of his son 
and successor, Edward the Elder, because 
— and this is the earliest historical mention 
of the place — the English Chronicle tells 
us that Edward took ''Lundenbyrg and 
Oxnaford and all the lands that were 
obedient thereto." That was in 912, a 
date which marks the first authenticated 
appearance of Oxford on the stage of 
English history. 

There is a passage in Domesday Book 
which gives us a fair idea of the size of the 
town in the Conqueror's day. It contained 
over seven hundred houses, but of these, so 
harshly had the Normans treated the place, 
two-thirds were ruined and unable to pay 
taxes. William made Robert D'Oily, one of 
his followers, governor of Oxford. D'Oily's 
is the earliest hand (a heavy one, by the way, 
as the townsfolk learnt to their cost) whose 
impress is visible on the Oxford of to-day. 
We may indeed, if we please, attribute a 
certain piece of wall in the Cathedral to 
a remoter date, but the g^rim old tower 




THE OLD- TOWER 




SAXON TOWER OF ST. MICHAEL's CHURCH, 
CORNMARKET STREET, OXFORD 



OLDEST OXFORD 3 

(which appears in the first illustration) is the 
first building in Oxford whose author can 
with certainty be named. It is all that remains 
of the Castle which Robert D'Oily built 
in order to control the surrounding country ; 
and he built his stronghold by the riverside 
because he thereby dominated the waterway, 
along which enemies were apt to come, as 
well as wide tracts of land in every direction. 
No doubt the hands of the conquered English 
laboured at the massive structure which was 
to keep them in subjection. 

A queen was once besieged in the 
castle, Matilda, Henry i.'s daughter. When 
food gave out she made her escape in a 
romantic manner, so the story tells. The 
river was frozen and the ground covered 
with snow. The queen was let down from 
the tower by night with ropes, clad in white, 
the better to escape observation. Three 
knights were with her, clad in white also, 
under whose guidance she reached Walling- 
ford on foot, and so escaped King Stephen's 
clutches. 

To the period of the Norman Conquest 



4 OXFORD 

belongs also the tower of St. Michaers 
Church, in the Cornmarket. It has been 
usual to describe this edifice as Saxon ; but 
antiquaries incline to think that if Robert 
D'Oily did not build St. Michael's tower, 
he at least repaired it. This tower formed a 
part of the city wall, and from its narrow 
windows arrows may have rained upon 
advancing foes. Adjoining it was Bocardo, 
the old north-gate of the city, whose upper 
cham_ber was long used as a prison. Nothing 
of Bocardo now remains ; but Robert D'Oily s 
handiwork is traceable, as many think, in 
the crypt and chancel of St. Peter-in-the- 
East and in the chancel arch at Holywell. 
In these buildings, then, the history of 
Norman Oxford is written, so far as history 
can be written in stone ; yet here and there 
about the city are to be seen structures which, 
although two or three centuries younger, 
have an appearance hardly less venerable. 
Year after year the aged walls and portals 
are thronged with fresh generations of the 
youth of England ; and it is in this combina- 
tion of youth and age that no little of the 



OLDEST OXFORD 5 

charm of Oxford lies. We speak within 
the limitations of mortality : but, could we 
escape them for a moment, " immortal age 
beside immortal youth " might be her most 
appropriate description. 



THE UNIVERSITY AND ITS BUILDINGS 

WHEN did the University come into 
existence ? That is a question 
which many people would like to have 
answered, but which still, like Brutus, 
" pauses for a reply." It is to the last degree 
improbable that we shall ever know. There 
were teachers and learners in Oxford at an 
early date, but so there were in many other 
English towns ; the plant struck deeper in 
Oxford than elsewhere, that is all that one 
can say. There are various indications that 
in the twelfth century the town had acquired 
a name for learning. In 1186, Giraldus 
Cambrensis, who had written a book about 
Ireland and wanted to get it known, came 
and read his manuscript aloud at Oxford, 
where, as he tells us, *' the clergy in England 
chiefly flourished and excelled in clerkly 
lore." That was fifty years after the death 



8 OXFORD 

of King Henry the Scholar, who — was it 
only a coincidence? — had a residence in 
Oxford. It is pleasant to find Oxford 
students, even in those early days, with ears 
attuned to hearing *'some new thing." 
'' Doctors of the different faculties," we 
are told, were among Giraldus' auditors : a 
fact which shows that learning was already 
getting systematised. A little later it has 
clothed itself in corporate form, and possesses 
a Chancellor. That official (when, and by 
whom appointed, is the mystery) is first 
mentioned in 12 14, and we can henceforth 
look upon the University as a living body. 
He is named in connection with the first 
recorded ''town and gown" row, when the 
citizens of Oxford took two clerks and hung 
them. The papal Legate (this was in the 
evil days of King John) intervened, and the 
citizens were very properly rebuked and 
fined. 

A century passed before ** The Gown " 
had a building set specially apart for the 
transaction of their affairs. Then, in 1322, 
Bishop Cobham of Worcester added a chapel 



UNIVERSITY AND BUILDINGS 9 

to the north-east corner of St. Mary's, and 
gave it to the University as a House of Con- 
gregation. The office of Proctor had already 
been instituted, and that functionary had 
plenty of students to employ his time — 
30,000 one writer assures us, but him we 
cannot credit. A fourth of that number is 
a liberal estimate. They lived in Halls and 
lodgings, a hard and an undisciplined life, 
preyed upon by the townsfolk and biting 
their thumbs at them in return (whence col- 
lisions frequently ensued) until Walter de 
Merton devised the College system, to the 
no small advantage of all concerned. 

Benefactions poured in upon the several 
Colleges, but the greater institution was not 
forgotten. In the Divinity School, within 
whose walls Latimer and Ridley defended 
their opinions, and Charles 11. 's Parliament 
debated, the University possesses, as is fit 
and proper, the most beautiful room in 
Oxford and one of the most beautiful in 
England. The style is Perpendicular and 
the ceiling is particularly admirable. To- 
gether with the fine room above it, in which 



10 OXFORD 

Duke Humphrey's manuscripts were housed, 
the Divinity School was completed in 
1480. 

Those six hundred manuscripts of Hum- 
phrey, Duke of Gloucester, which he be- 
stowed on the University, had a sad history. 
They were dispersed by Edward vi.'s Com- 
missioners, who judged them to be popish 
in tendency, and only four of them were 
ever restored^to their old home. Neverthe- 
less, Duke Humphrey's gift was the origin 
of the Bodleian Library. One does not like 
to think what the Library was like in the 
days which followed, when its manuscripts 
were scattered abroad and its shelves sold ; 
but in the last years of the sixteenth century 
there arose a man who took pity upon its 
desolation. This was Sir Thomas Bodley, 
Fellow of Merton, a man of travel and affairs, 
who devoted the last years of his life to the 
creation of what is now one of the most 
famous libraries in existence. It has ever 
been the delight of scholars since the days 
of James i., who wished he might be chained 
to the Library, as some of the books were. 



ff^ r 




w- 




UNIVERSITY AND BUILDINGS 11 

The original chamber did not long suffice 
to contain the volumes ; an east and then a 
west wing were added, the latter over Arch- 
bishop Laud's Convocation House (1640) 
which superseded Cobham's Chapel. From 
these the books overflowed into various 
rooms in the Old Schools Quadrangle, which 
had been rebuilt in James i.'s reign. Further 
space was gained in i860, when the Radcliffe, 
set free by the removal of its collection of 
scientific works to the New Museum, was 
lent to the Bodleian ; and again in 1882, on 
the opening of the New Examination Schools 
(sketched by Mr. Matthison), when the Old 
Schools were rendered available for the 
uses of the Library. 

The various public buildings belonging to 
the University erected during the nineteenth 
century, such as the Taylor Institution, 
the University Art Galleries, the New 
Museum, and the Indian Institute, can 
hardly escape attracting the attention of 
visitors to Oxford. It remains to say a 
word of two older structures, which appear 
side by side in Mr. Matthison's next draw- 



12 OXFORD 

ing — the Clarendon Building and the 
Sheldonian Theatre. 

The Clarendon Building was designed by 
Vanbrugh, and completed in 1713. It is 
named after the author of the History of the 
Rebellion, and was partially built out of the 
profits of the copyright of that work, which 
Clarendon's son presented to the University. 
It was the home of the University Press 
until 1830, and is now occupied by the 
offices of various University Boards. 

The Sheldonian Theatre, designed by 
Sir Christopher Wren, is associated with 
less tranquil occupations. It is here that 
honorary degrees are conferred and the 
Encaenia held ; here the Terrce FiliuSy a 
licensed jester, used to hurl his witticisms 
at whomsoever he pleased ; and here, in 
later times, the occupants of the Under- 
graduates' Gallery have endeavoured to 
keep up his tradition. Here, too, Convoca- 
tion sometimes meets, when a burning 
question is to be discussed and Masters of 
Arts assemble in their hundreds. On such 
occasions the Sheldonian has been known to 



UNIVERSITY AND BUILDINGS 13 

be as full of clamour as at the Encaenia. It 
is perhaps pleasanter to view Wren's stately 
building when it is void alike of under- 
graduate merriment and of graduate con- 
tention. 



ST. MARY'S CHURCH 

A LTHOUGH St. Mary's, being a parish 
-^"^ Church, cannot be numbered among 
the buildings which are University property, 
it has been almost as closely connected as 
any of them with the life and history of the 
University. Cobham's Chapel, as has been 
already said, was the first House of 
Congregation ; and in the room above it 
the University kept its manuscripts, until 
Duke Humphrey's Library was built. The 
chancel and nave, moreover, were used by 
the gownsmen for both religious and secular 
purposes ; and it is strange to reflect that 
consecrated walls heard not only sermons 
and disputations, but the jests of the 
TerrcB Filius and the uproar which they 
excited. It was only when the Sheldonian 
was built (1669) that St. Mary's ceased to 
be the scene of the *'Act" — the modern 

15 



16 OXFORD 

Encaenia — and was restored to its original 
intention. 

The porch, with its spiral columns and 
statue of the Virgin and Child, is much later 
than the rest of the building, being the 
work of Dr. Owen, Archbishop Laud's 
chaplain. Architecturally it is not in keep- 
ing with the nave and spire, but in itself, 
especially when the creeper which en- 
wreathes it takes on its autumnal colour, it 
is very beautiful. It was found necessary, 
in 1895, to restore the spire, which with the 
pinnacles at its base is the special glory of St. 
Mary's. 

The Church is intimately connected with 
the religious history of the nation. Here 
Keble preached the famous Assize Sermon, 
which is regarded as the beginning of the 
Oxford Movement ; here, too, Newman, 
before he withdrew to his retirement at 
Littlemore, preached those many sermons to 
whose spiritual force men of all schools of 
thought have borne witness. A later vicar 
was Dean Burgon, to whose memory the 
west window was put up in 1891. 




THE PORCH, ST. MARy's, HIGH STREET 




ALL SOULS COLLEGE AND ST. MAKYS CHURCH 



ST. MARY'S CHURCH 17 

But Cranmer's connection with St. Mary's 
transcends all its ocher associations. On 
September 12, 1555, he was here put on 
trial for his religious opinions, which he 
defended with as much ability as courage. 
He was then recommitted to his prison, and 
in December Rome pronounced him guilty. 
The hardships of his imprisonment told upon 
his resolution, and he was induced to write 
several letters of submission, in which his 
so-called errors were recanted. On March 
21, 1556, he was once more brought to St. 
Mary's. His life was to be taken, but he 
was to crown his humiliation by a public 
confession. Placed upon a wooden stage 
over against the pulpit, he had to hear a 
sermon, at the close of which he was to 
speak. His fortitude returned, and to the 
amazement of all he recanted his recantation. 
** As for the Pope " — these were his memor- 
able words — ** I utterly refuse him, as Christ's 
enemy and Antichrist, with all his false 
doctrine ; and as for the Sacrament, I believe 
as I have taught in my book against the 
Bishop of Winchester. And for as much as 



18 OXFORD 

my hand offended, writing contrary to my 
heart, my hand shall first be punished there- 
fore ; for, may I come to the fire, it shall be 
first burned." He was hurried off to the 
stake, and there 

"lifted his left hand to heaven, 
And thrust his right into the bitter flame ; 
And crying in his deep voice, more than once, 
' This hath offended — this unworthy hand ! ' 
So held it till it was all burn'd, before 
The flame had reach'd his body." 



THE CATHEDRAL 

A T the east end of the choir aisle of the 
-^~^ Cathedral there is a portion of the 
wall which is possibly the oldest piece of 
masonry in Oxford, for it is thought to be a 
part of the original Church of St. Frideswyde, 
on whose site the Cathedral Church of Christ 
(to give its full title) now stands. Even so 
it is not possible to speak with historical 
certainty of the saint or of the date of her 
Church, which was built for her by her father, 
so the legend says, when she took the veil ; 
though the year 740 may be provisionally 
accepted as the last year of her life. St. 
Frideswyde's was a conventual Church, with 
a Priory attached, and both were burnt down 
in 1002, but rebuilt by Ethelred. How 
much of his handiwork survives in the 
present structure it is not easy to determine ; 
but the Norman builders of the twelfth 

19 



20 OXFORD 

century effected, at any rate, such a trans- 
formation that no suggestion of Saxon 
architecture is obtruded. Their work went 
on for some twenty years, under the super- 
vision of the then Prior, Robert of Cricklade, 
and the Church was consecrated anew in 
1 1 80. The main features of the interior — 
the massive pillars and arches — are substan- 
tially the same to-day as the builders left 
them then. 

The Priory was surrendered to Henry 
VIII. in 1522, who made it over to Wolsey. 
That cardinal, in his zeal for the new 
College, which he now proceeded to found, 
shewed little respect for the old Church. He 
practically demolished its west end to make 
room for his building operations. The trun- 
cated Church was used as a chapel for his 
students, until the new and magnificent one 
which he had planned should be completed. 
That edifice was never built. Wolsey was 
disgraced, and the king took over St. 
Frideswyde's, to be the Cathedral Church of 
his newly created diocese of Oxford. 

From this date, then, 1546, it is a 




rHE CATHEDRAL, CHRIST CHURCH 




^AXON CHAPEL, SHKUN'E OF ST. FRIDESWIDE, 
CHRIST CHURCH 



THE CATHEDRAL 21 

Cathedral, but a College chapel also ; for 
Henry was content that the one building 
should serve the two purposes. The Cathe- 
dral was restored in the seventeenth century 
and again in the nineteenth, with consider- 
able alterations. It is hardly worth while 
here to enumerate these in their entirety ; 
but when one sees in old engravings the 
beautiful east window, put up in the four- 
teenth century, which was removed at the 
time of Sir Gilbert Scott's restoration, it is 
impossible not to regret a change which 
appears to be quite unjustifiable. At the 
same time it may be readily admitted that 
the east end, designed on Norman lines, 
which the architect substituted, has con- 
siderable beauty, and harmonises with the 
general tone of the building. Regret is 
unavailing, and it is perhaps wiser to console 
oneself with the reflection that at anyrate 
things might have been worse. 

The Cathedral is so hemmed in by the 
various buildings of Christ Church that it is 
difficult to obtain a comprehensive view from 
the outside. Perhaps one sees it best from 



22 OXFORD 

Merton Fields, with the beautiful Rose 
Window prominently visible. Even so the 
Cathedral is in part hidden by the ancient 
Refectory of St. Frideswyde's (long since 
converted into rooms). This is the view, 
sketched from the nearer foreground of the 
Canon's Garden, which appears in Mr. 
Matthisons drawing, only that the Rose 
Window is hidden by trees. The spire — or 
spire and tower combined — no longer holds 
the bells which chimed originally in Osney 
Abbey, on the river's farther side ; they 
were removed to the new Belfry (completed 
in 1879), which appears to the left of the 
Refectory. 

We are now to speak of the interior of the 
building. It is sketched from various points 
of view in the accompanying six illustrations : 
but twice as many would not suffice to exhaust 
its interest. At no time does the nave appear 
more impressive than when a shaft of sun- 
light strikes across the massive columns ; and 
Miss Cheesewright has sought to fix upon 
her canvas the charm of such a moment. The 
Lady Chapel was added early in the thirteenth 




INTERIOR, CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL 



THE CATHEDRAL 23 

century ; here are enshrined the remains of 
St. Frideswyde, which were moved several 
times before they reached their final resting- 
place. The Latin Chapel dates from the 
fourteenth century, and is full of interest. 
Some of its carved woodwork is to be referred 
to Wolsey's time, and it contains the tombs, 
among others, of Lady Elizabeth Montacute, 
the Chapel's reputed builder, and of Sir 
George Nowers, a comrade-in-arms of the 
Black Prince. Other notable tombs in 
various parts of the Cathedral are those of 
Robert Burton, author of the Anatomy of 
Melancholy, Bishop Berkeley, the meta- 
physician and upholder of the virtues of tar- 
water ; Bishop King, last Abbot of Osney and 
first Bishop of Oxford ; Dean Liddell and Dr. 
Pusey. A window in the south transept 
depicts the murder of Thomas a Becket, 
whose head has been obliterated, by the order, 
it is said, of Henry viii. Another window 
in the same transept commemorates Canon 
Liddon. The art of Burne-Jones has con- 
tributed not a little to the Cathedral's beauty. 
In the east window of the Latin Chapel he 



24 OXFORD 

has set forth the romantic story of St. 
Frideswyde. Another of the windows which 
he designed is at the east end of the Lady 
Chapel, and serves as a memorial of Mr. 
Vyner, who was murdered by Greek brigands 
in 1870 ; another, at the east end of the north 
aisle of the choir, commemorates St. Cecilia, 
with which corresponds a '* St. Catherine of 
Alexandria" in the south aisle, put up in 
memory of Miss Edith Liddell, daughter of 
Dean Liddell. Lastly, at the west end of 
this aisle, the artist has chosen '' Faith, Hope, 
and Charity" as his subject. 

The Cloister and Chapter- House (thir- 
teenth century) must not be overlooked. 
The entrance to the Chapter- House is by 
a singularly fine Norman doorway. The 
Cloister saw the unworthy degradation of 
Archbishop Cranmer, after the Pope had 
pronounced him guilty of heresy. 

Enough has perhaps been said to shew 
intending visitors to Oxford that the interest 
of the Cathedral is both great and varied. 
To those who already know it, these hints 
will seem a poor and inadequate attempt to 




TOMB OF LADY MONTACUTE AN.D SHRINE OF ST. FRIDESWIDE, 
CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL 




TOMB OF SIR GEORGE NOWERS IN CHRIST CHURCH 



THE CATHEDRAL 25 

express its manifold charm, but the pictures 
may serve to emphasise their vivid recollec- 
tions. Those who have yet to make 
acquaintance with it will perhaps exclaim, as 
the Queen of Sheba did of Solomon's wisdom 
and prosperity, '* Behold, the half was not 
told me." 



THE STREETS OF OXFORD 

WHERE is the centre, the o/*^a\o9 77)9, 
of Oxford? The average under- 
graduate will probably place it within the 
walls of his own College ; but we, detached 
observers whose salad days, presumably, are 
over, look for a definition worthy of more 
catholic acceptance. To us Oxford is not a 
city of Colleges only, but of noble streets and 
wide spaces. Them it is our purpose to 
explore, not with the hasty stride of one 
bound for lecture-room, or cricket-ground, or 
river, but leisurely and with discrimination ; 
we are ready to be chidden for curiosity, so 
we incur not the gravamen of indifference. 
Where, then, shall we start on our pilgrimage, 
and from what centre ? If there be in any 
city a place where four principal roads meet, 
as at the Cross in Gloucester, we may listen 
there for the pulsations of that city's heart. 

27 



28 OXFORD 

Such a place there is in Oxford, Carfax, — 
Quatre votes, — the spot where four ways 
meet. This, not too arbitrarily, we will name 
the centre of Oxford, and thence will wend 
upon our pilgrimage. But let us pause a 
moment, before we set out, at the parting of 
the ways. 

The old Church of St. Martin's at Carfax 
was pulled down in 1896, and only the tower 
left. St. Martin's was the church of the \ 
city fathers, as St. Mary's was (and is) the 
church of the University. Nowadays the 
civic procession winds its way to All Saints, I 
a nearer neighbour of St. Mary's. Such 
propinquity would have sorted ill with the 
manners of mediaeval Oxford, when the 
enmity of town and gown, at times quiescent, 
was never wholly quelled. In an age when 
the clerks, regular and secular, fell out among 
themselves in the precincts of St. Mary's, 
even to the shedding of blood, it is idle to 
look for a more civil temper in the burgesses : 
and the bells of Carfax and St. Mary's 
summoned those who frequented them to 
battle as well as to prayer. They rang out 



^'yn'if^^jr ■"^•s§.j,if^ -, 




CARFAX CHURCH, FROM " THE HIGH 



THE STREETS OF OXFORD 29 

with the former intention on the feast of 
St. Scholastica in 1354. It is sad to record 
that the quarrel arose in a tavern, where two 
gownsmen abused the vintner for serving 
them with wine of wretched quaHty. The 
conflict which ensued was of a very deadly 
nature. The scholars held their own until 
evening, when the citizens called the 
neighbouring villagers of Cowley and 
Headington to their aid, and the Gown were 
routed. As many as forty students were 
slain, and twenty-three townsmen. Then 
Edward iii. took steps to protect the men of 
learning, lowering, among other measures, 
the tower of Carfax, because they complained 
that in times of combat the townsmen 
retired thither as to a castle, and from its 
summit grievously annoyed and galled them 
with arrows and stones. The burgesses 
also were forced to attend annually at St. 
Mary's Church, when mass was offered for 
the souls of the slain, bearing on their persons 
sundry marks of degradation ; and though 
these were subsequently done away, it was 
only in 1825 that they were excused the 



30 OXFORD 

indignity of attending the commemorative 
service. 

Such are some of the memories evoked by 
the Tower of Carfax, the best view of which 
is given in Mr. Matthison's first drawing. 
The second illustration is from a point rather 
farther to the eastward. Both give a glimpse 
of the Mitre Hotel, most picturesque of old 
Oxford hostelries, and the second a part of 
the front of All Saints. At this point we 
may for a moment leave the High Street 
(which we have begun to traverse, half 
insensibly, under the artist's guidance) and 
wander down ''The Turl," as Turl Street is 
commonly called. ''Turl" is said to be a 
corruption of Thorold, and Thorold to have 
been the name of a postern-gate in the old 
city walls. The quiet old street has Colleges 
on either hand, Lincoln, Exeter, and Jesus. 
Retracing our footsteps, we get the fine view 
of All Saints which is given in the third 
illustration. The history of this Church, 
known originally as All Hallows, goes back 
to the twelfth century, but the present 
building, designed by Dr. Aldrich, a former 




THE TURL 



THE STREETS OF OXFORD 31 

Dean of Christ Church, has only been In 
existence since 1 708, the old one having been 
destroyed in 1699 by the fall of its spire. 
The present graceful tower and spire are a 
worthy memorial of Dean Aldrich's versatility. 
We now return to our exploration of 
''The High," whose magnificence of outline 
become more and more apparent as one 
walks eastwards. It was a poet bred at 
Cambridge, no less a poet than Wordsworth, 
whom the manifold charm of Oxford tempted 
" to slight his own beloved Cam " ; and he it 
is who has written the most quotable descrip- 
tion of " The High " in brief. " The stream- 
like windings of that glorious street," he 
writes : and indeed its curve suggests nothing 
so much as the majestic bend of some noble 
river. We may cite, too, Sir Walter Scott's 
testimony, who claimed that the High Street 
of Edinburgh is the most magnificent in 
Great Britain, except the High Street of 
Oxford. It is not at all difficult to assent 
to this opinion. As the view gradually 
unfolds itself, we have on our left successively 
the new front of Brasenose, St. Mary's, All 



32 OXFORD 

Souls, Queen's, and Magdalen ; on our right 
the long, dark front of University, and many 
old dwelling-houses, whose architecture does 
not shame their situation. Looking backward 
for a moment at Queen's College (perhaps 
when the west is rosy, as in Mr. Matthison's 
drawing), one sees substantially the same 
view which delighted Wordsworth in 1820; 
and we, if we are wise, shall take as much 
delight in it as he. Many thousand times 
since then has the sun set behind the spires 
of St. Mary's and All Saints, but the 
unaltered prospect obliterates the intervening 
years, and we are at one with the great poet 
in his admiration. 

Contrast is always pleasant, and one may 
reach Broad Street (which certainly must not 
be neglected) by several thoroughfares totally 
unlike **The High." We may traverse 
Long Wall Street, with Magdalen Grove on 
our right, a pleasance hidden from the way- 
farer by a high wall, but visible to such as 
lodge in upper rooms on the other side of 
the way ; thence along Holywell Street, with 
its queer medley of old houses, many of them 



THE STREETS OF OXFORD 33 

pleasing to the eye. Or, still greater contrast, 
we may go by Queen's and New College 
Lanes, with their rectangular turns and 
severe masonry on either side. Or, again, 
we may go through the Radcliffe square with 
its massive buildings on every hand — the 
Radcliffe dome in the centre, girt about with 
St. Mary's, Brasenose, All Souls, and the Old 
Schools. In any case we find ourselves, at 
the last, in Broad Street. 

It is a wide and quiet street, with com- 
paratively little traffic, a street dear to 
meditation. Some such suggestion is con- 
veyed by Mr. Matthison's sketch. He has 
not given us here the fronts of BalHol, 
Trinity, or Exeter,- — views of the first two 
will be found later on, — but just the old 
houses (the one in dark relief is Kettell Hall, 
built by a President of Trinity in the seven- 
teenth century) asleep in the sunshine, with 
the Sheldonian on the right, whose guardian 
figure-heads, traditionally said to represent 
the twelve Caesars, seem by the expression 
of their stony countenances to be thinking 
hard of nothing in particular. At the other 
3 



34 OXFORD 

end of Broad Street, marked by a flat cross 
in the roadway, is the spot where tradition 
says the martyrs suffered for their faith. 

Their Memorial is a little distance off, in 
the neighbouring street of St. Giles'. It is 
an effective and graceful structure, with 
characteristic statues of Cranmer, Latimer, 
and Ridley, and an inscription stating the 
manner of their death and the reasons for 
their martyrdom. It was erected in 1841, 
by public subscription, when also the north 
aisle of the adjacent Church of St. Mary 
Magdalen was rebuilt out of the same fund. 
The Memorial appears twice in Mr. 
Matthison's drawings ; once at the approach 
of evening, looking towards the city, and 
once as it is seen in full daylight, with the 
widening vista of St. Giles' Street in the 
background. St. Giles' is surely the widest 
street in the three kingdoms ; Broad Street 
is narrow when compared with it. Each 
September it is the scene of what is said to 
be the largest and the oldest fair in England. 
But we have not chosen a fair-day for our 
pilgrimage. 



THE RIVER 

TF the ''towers of Julius" are, as Gray 
-■" called them, *' London's lasting shame," 
the River is the lasting pride of Oxford. 
When does ''The River" cease to be Isis 
and become Thames ? One might as well 
ask when it ceases to be Thames and becomes 
Isis. The term is probably not used out of 
Oxford, and with much vagueness there. 
Matthew Arnold speaks of "the stripling 
Thames at Bablock-Hythe" (a very lovely 
ferry higher up than Oxford), and at Abingdon 
nobody talks about the Isis. The use of the 
name is one of the odd and pleasant con- 
servatisms of Oxford. 

Then, again, there are two rivers in 
Oxford, according to the map, Thames and 
Cherwell ; but to the undergraduate there are 
three— "The River," "The Upper River," 
and " The Cher." For the sake of strangers 



36 OXFORD 

it may be well to elucidate this enigma. 
"The River" is that part of the Thames 
which begins at Folly Bridge and ends at 
Sandford, except that on the occasion of* long 
courses " and Commemoration picnics it is 
prolonged as far as Nuneham. It is under- 
stood subsequently to pass through several 
counties and reach eventually the German 
Ocean. You do not go upon ''The River" 
commonly for amusement, but for stern and 
serious work. You aspire to a thwart in your 
College ''torpid" first, then in your College 
"eight," with the fantastic possibility of a 
place in the " Trials " or — crown of all — in 
the 'Varsity " Eight " on some distant and 
auspicious day ! It is no child's-play that is 
involved, as every oarsman knows. "The 
River " is an admirable school of self-control 
and self-denial, and "training" — long may 
it flourish ! — is one of the best of disciplines. 
It has been said, and with truth, that boating- 
men are the salt of undergraduate society. 

The "Torpids" are rowed in March — 
you will appreciate this fact if you are rowing 
" bow " and a hailstorm comes on — in eight- 



THE RIVER 37 

oared boats with fixed seats. The name 
bestowed on them seems a little unkind. 
The ** Eights " come off in the summer term, 
when sliding seats are used — to the greater 
comfort of the oarsmen, and the greater 
gratification of the lookers-on, for this rowing 
is out of all comparison prettier, and of 
course the boats travel at a greater pace. 
Both "Eights" and ** Torpids," as most 
people are aware, are bumping races ; that 
is, the boats start each at a given distance 
from the one behind it, and the object is to 
bump the boat in front, and so bump one's 
way to that proudest of all positions, " the 
Head of the River." A bump in front of 
the Barges (which Mr. Matthison has 
sketched), following a long and stern chase 
from IfHey, is a thing to live for. 

West of Folly Bridge ''The River" might 
as well, for all the ordinary undergraduate 
knows of it, sink for some distance, like a 
certain classic stream, beneath the ground. 
Venturesome explorers tell of a tract of water 
put to base mechanical uses, flanked by dingy 
wharves and overlooked by attic windows. 



38 OXFORD 

But to most boating-men *' The River " ends 
at Salter's, only to reappear in the modified 
form and style of **The Upper River" at 
Port Meadow. "The Upper River" is 
some distance from everthing else, but it 
is well worth the journey to Port Meadow. 
There is nothing strenuous about **The 
Upper River." It always seems afternoon 
there, and a lazy afternoon. The standard 
of oarsmanship may not be very high, but 
no one is in a hurry and no one is censorious. 
To enjoy the Upper River as it deserves to 
be enjoyed, you should have laboured at the 
Torpid oar a Lent Term, and have found 
yourself not required (this year) for the 
Eight. You know quite enough of rowing, 
in such a case, to cut a figure on the Upper 
River ; but you will not want to cut it. If 
you appreciate your surroundings properly, 
you will want to sit in the stern while some- 
body else does the rowing; or, if you take 
an oar, you will want to pull in leisurely 
fashion and to look about you as you please, 
in the blissful absence of raucous injunctions 
to **keep your eyes in the boat." There is 



»:;■■■■;:«« 






-ifc. 



THE RIVER 39 

much that is pleasant to look upon — the 
wide expanse of Port Meadow on the right, 
on the towpath willows waving in the wind, 
and on the water here and there the white 
sail of a centre-board. As you draw near 
Godstow, you may see cattle drinking, knee- 
deep in the stream ; you may land and 
refresh yourself, if you will, at the ** Trout" 
at Godstow ; may visit the ruins of the 
nunnery, with their memories of Fair 
Rosamond ; or, leaning on the bridge-rail 
over Godstow weir, lulled by the ceaseless 
murmur of the water, may muse upon the 
vanity of mere ambition and the servitude 
of such as row in College Eights. Then, 
if the day be young enough, you may go 
on to Eynsham or to Bablock-Hythe, and 
perhaps afoot to Stanton-Harcourt, a most 
lovely village ; and returning at dusk, when 
the stream appears to widen indefinitely as 
the light fails, you will vow that for sheer 
peace and enjoyment there is nothing like 
the Upper River. 

Unless, indeed, it be the Cherwell. This 
little stream, which flows into the Isis near 



40 



OXFORD 



the last of the Barges, while it winds about 
Christ Church Meadow, Magdalen, and Meso- 
potamia, is edged about with shadowy 
walks ; but once clear of the Parks, it is 
embedded in grassy and flower-laden banks, 
through which your boat passes with a lively 
sense of exploration. Presently, at a break 
in all this greenery, you come abreast of a 
grey stone building, with ancient gables and 
air of reposeful dignity. Instinctively your 
oar-blades rest upon the water, for so much 
beauty demands more than a moment's 
admiration. It is Water Eaton Hall, one 
of those smaller Elizabethan manor-houses 
which have survived the violence of the 
Rebellion and the neglect of impoverished 
owners. All about its aged masonry is the 
growth and freshness of the spring. Oxford 
is several miles away, but even so you are 
reminded of her special charm — the associa- 
tion of reverend age with youth's perennial 
renewal. 



MERTON COLLEGE 

]\ /TERTON is in several respects the 
^^•^ most interesting of the Colleges of 
Oxford. In the first place, it is the oldest; 
for though the original endowments of 
University and Balliol were bestowed a 
little earlier, Merton was the first College 
to have a corporate existence, regulated and 
defined by statute. With the granting of 
Merton's statutes in 1264, a new era of 
University life began. From being casual 
sojourners in lodgings and Halls, students 
from this date tended more and more to 
be gathered into organised, endowed, and 
dignified societies, where discipline was 
one of the factors of education. 

Such is Oxford's debt to Walter de 
Merton, Chancellor of England and Bishop 
of Rochester, who died by a fall from his 
horse in fording a river in his diocese, and 

41 



42 OXFORD 

was buried in Rochester Cathedral. His 
tomb there has twice been renovated by 
the piety of the College which he founded. 

His statutes are preserved at Merton, and 
were consulted as precedents when other 
Colleges were founded, at Cambridge as well 
as at Oxford. " By the example which he 
set," runs the inscription on his tomb, ''he 
is the founder of all existing Colleges." 

Another great distinction of Merton is 
its Library (whose interior appears in Mrs. 
Walton's sketch), which was built in 1377, 
by William Rede, Bishop of Chichester, 
and is the oldest Library in the kingdom. 
In monasteries and other houses where 
learning took refuge, books had hitherto 
been kept in chests, an arrangement which 
must have had its drawbacks, considering 
the weight of the volumes of those days. 

Mr. Matthison's first drawing shews the 
College as seen from Merton Street, with 
the imposing tower of the Chapel in the 
background. A very fine view of the build- 
ings of Merton, in their full extent, is obtained 
from Christ Church Meadow. 





MERTON COLLEGE LIBRARY 



MERTON COLLEGE 43 

To speak of them in detail, the Muniment 
Room is the oldest collegiate structure in 
Oxford, and possibly dates from the lifetime 
of the Founder. The Hall gateway, with its 
ancient oak door and enormous iron hinges, 
is of the same epoch. Of the three Quad- 
rangles the small one to the north (which 
contains the Library) is the oldest. The 
front Quadrangle opens by a magnificent 
archway into the Inner, or Fellows' Court, 
built in 1 6 lo in the late Gothic style, its south 
gate surmounted with pillars of the several 
Greek orders. The Common Room (1661) 
was the first room of the kind to be opened 
in Oxford. 

The beautiful Chapel has rather the appear- 
ance of a parish Church, which indeed it is. 
St. John the Baptist's parish, however, is so 
minute as hardly to need, in a city of many 
churches, a place of worship all to itself, and 
the building was assigned to Merton in the 
last decade of the thirteenth century, with 
the proviso that one of the chaplains should 
discharge such parochial duties as might 
arise. In the ante-chapel are the monuments 



44 OXFORD 

of the famous Sir Thomas Bodley, Sir 
Henry Savile, once Master, and Antony 
Wood, greatest of Oxford antiquarians. 
Wood (who died in 1695) was associated with 
Merton all his life. He was born in the 
house opposite the College entrance, called 
Postmasters' Hall, and there he passed most 
of his days. 

It is from him that we get a great 
deal of our information about early Oxford. 
Royalty has repeatedly enjoyed the hospit- 
ality of Merton, and here is Wood's account 
of a visit paid by Queen Catherine, wife of 
Henry viii. " She vouchsafed to con- 
descend so low as to dine with the Merton- 
ians, for the sake of the late Warden 
Rawlyns, at this time almoner to the king, 
notwithstanding she was expected by other 
Colleges." Elizabeth and her privy council 
were equally gracious, and were entertained 
after dinner with disputations performed by 
the Fellows. One would like to know what 
subjects were disputed, and what the queen 
thought of her entertainment. When Charles 
i.'s Court came to Oxford, Queen Henrietta 



MERTON COLLEGE 45 

Maria occupied the Warden's lodgings, which 
were again tenanted by Charles ii.'s queen, 
when the Court fled from plague-stricken 
London. 

Merton has had great men among her 
Fellows, but none greater than John Wycliffe ; 
and among her postmasters (so the scholars 
are called here) no name captivates our 
sympathies more readily than that of Richard 
Steele, trooper and essayist, the friend of 
Addison and the husband of Prue. 



UNIVERSITY COLLEGE 

IT was long and hotly maintained that 
University College was founded by 
Alfred the Great, and by celebrating its 
thousandth anniversary in 1872 the College 
would seem to have accepted this pious 
opinion. The claim was raised as far back 
as 1387, when the College, being engaged in 
a lawsuit about a part of its estates, tried to 
ingratiate itself with Richard 11. by repre- 
senting that its founder was his predecessor, 
Alfred, and that Bede and John of Beverley 
had been among its students. Now, Bede 
and John of Beverley died about a century 
before Alfred was born. Ex pede Herculem. 
The Alfred tradition need not keep us longer. 
University College owes its existence to 
William of Durham, who, at his death in 
1249, beqeathed to the University the sum of 

three hundred and ten marks for the use of 

47 



48 OXFORD 

ten or more Masters (at that time the highest 
academical title) to be natives of Durham 
or its vicinity. Certain tenements were pur- 
chased, one of them on a part of the site of 
Brasenose, and here, in 1253, Durham's 
scholars first assembled; but only in 1280 
were they granted powers of self-government. 
The recent foundation of Merton no doubt 
suggested the idea of bestowing a corporate 
life on what had hitherto been known as 
" University Hall." Durham's scholars re- 
moved to their present locality in 1343. 

One of the earliest benefactors whom 
**Univ." (as this College is familiarly termed 
in Oxford) is bound to remember is Walter 
Skirlaw, who became Bishop of Durham in 
1403. He ran away from his home in 
youth in order to study at Oxford, and his 
parents heard no more of him (according to 
his biographer) till he arrived at the see of 
Durham. He then sought them out, and 
provided for their old age. Another bene- 
factor (1566) was Joan Davys, wife of a 
citizen of Oxford, who gave estates for 
the support of two Logic lecturers, and for 







UNIVERSITY COLLEGE 



UNIVERSITY COLLEGE 49 

increasing the diet of the Master and Fellows. 
Had Mr. Cecil Rhodes heard of this lady ? 
To touch on the Masters of ** Univ.," a curious 
career was that of Obadiah Walker, who lost 
his Fellowship in Commonwealth times for 
adherence to the Church of England; later 
on was made Master and turned Roman 
Catholic ; enjoyed the favour of James ii. ; 
and lost his Mastership at the Revolution 
for adherence to the Church of Rome. 

Of the present buildings of the College 
none is of earlier date than the seventeenth 
century. The two Quadrangles form a 
grand front towards the High Street, with a 
tower over each gateway at equal distances 
from the extremities. Above the gateways 
are statues of Queen Anne and Queen Mary, 
on the outside ; two more, within, represent 
James ii. and Dr. Radcliffe. It was mainly 
at the cost of John Radcliffe, a member of 
the College, that the smaller Quadrangle was 
completed. Other famous members were 
the brothers Scott, afterwards Lords Stowell 
and Eldon ; Sir William Jones, the great 
Oriental scholar ; and Sir Roger Newdigate, 
4 



50 OXFORD 

responsible for so many thousand heroic 
couplets, who gave the handsome chimney- 
piece in the Hall. It is curious to notice, by 
the way, that the fireplace stood in the 
centre of this room until i ^66, The Common 
Room contains two specimens of an out-of- 
the-way art, portraits of Henry iv. and 
Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, burnt in 
wood by Dr. Griffith, a former Master. 

The beautiful monument to the poet 
Shelley, set up in the College in 1893, is the 
gift of Lady Shelley. Its honoured position 
within the walls of the Foundation which 
drove him out so hastily and harshly is 
indeed a fitting emblem of " the late remorse 
of love." 



BALLIOL COLLEGE 

nr^HIS College was originated about 1260 
-*■ by John de Balliol, a baron of 
Durham, whose son for four years occupied 
the throne of Scotland. But inasmuch as 
John de Balliol only made provision for four 
students, and that as penance for an outrage, 
the greater credit attaches to his wife 
Dervorguilla, who endowed a dozen more 
and hired them a lodging close to St. Mary 
Magdalen Church, on the site where part of 
the present College stands. Devorguilla 
gave her scholars their first statutes in 1282. 
She bade them live temperately, and con- 
verse with one another in the Latin tongue. 

Truth to tell, as the revenues at first 
yielded each scholar only eightpence a week, 
riotous living seemed hardly practicable. 
Benefactors, however, presently stepped in, 
notably Sir Philip Somervyle of Staffordshire, 

51 



52 OXFORD 

who in 1340 raised the weekly allowance to 
elevenpence, and to fifteenpence in case 
victuals were dear. The grateful College ac- 
cepted from Sir Philip a new body of statutes, 
in which the now familiar title, *' Master of 
Balliol," makes its first appearance, a title 
associated twenty years afterwards with the 
honoured name of John Wycliffe. Among 
later benefactors may be mentioned Peter 
Blundell, founder of the Devonshire school 
which bears his name ; Lady Elizabeth 
Periam (a sister of Francis Bacon) ; and John 
Snell, a native of Ayrshire, — it is to his 
endowment that Balliol owes her most 
distinguished Scotsmen, such as Adam 
Smith, Lockhart (Sir Walter Scott's son-in- 
law and biographer), and Archbishop Tait. 

Balliol was an early friend to the new 
learning, and fostered the scholarly tastes of 
Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, son of 
Henry iv., and Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester 
(to name but two of her most prominent 
humanists). Duke Humphrey left his books 
to the University, six hundred in number — a 
very large collection for those days, when 



BALLIOL COLLEGE 53 

as yet Caxton had not revolutionised the 
world. And in Reformation days, when the 
humanities were called to account, learning 
found a zealous supporter in Cuthbert 
Tunstall, Bishop of Durham, who had been 
bred at Balliol. 

The annals of the College during the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are not 
particularly distinguished. After the Restor- 
ation Balliol men seem to have been 
considerably addicted to malt liquors, and 
much ale does not conduce to profound 
study. But modern Balliol men might 
apply to their own use the words of Dr. 
Ingram's famous song, ** Who fears to speak 
of '98?" for it was in 1798 that Dr. Parsons 
became Master of the College, and with his 
advent began the great days of Balliol. 

Parsons, with two other heads of houses, 
established the Examination system, which 
has been so much belauded and so much 
abused. It was soon apparent that Balliol 
tutors had the knack of equipping men to 
face the ordeal of '* the Schools " ; the College 
speedily came to the front, and its intellectual 



54 OXFORD 

pre-eminence in Oxford during the nineteenth 
century is now universally admitted. Men 
trained at Balliol during this period occupied 
and still occupy some of the very highest 
positions in the State. Not to mention the 
living, whose fame is in the mouths of all 
men, some of the most prominent names are 
those of Lords Coleridge, Bowen, and Peel 
(formerly Speaker of the House of Commons), 
Sir Robert Morier, and Archbishop Temple. 
Matthew Arnold and Clough were under- 
graduates at Balliol with Benjamin Jowett, 
afterwards its most famous Master ; and, to 
balance the severity of these poets, the 
lighter Muse of Calverley sojourned for a 
time within its walls. 

The buildings of Balliol, which Mr. 
Matthison has sketched from four points of 
view, are extensive, but not conspicuously 
beautiful. The front towards Broad Street 
was rebuilt in 1867 by Mr. Waterhouse. 
Old prints assure us that it had previously a 
forbidding and almost prison-like aspect. 
Mr. Matthison calls attention to the fact that 
this picture shows the spot where the 



. tej"^ * J 




PART OF BALLIOL COLLF.G 



BALLIOL COLLEGE 55 

martyrs were burned. The automobile in 
the foreground may suggest to the thought- 
ful reader that martyrdom is no longer by 
fire. The drawing from St. Giles' perhaps 
conveys a pleasanter impression. The third 
shews us that part of the College known as 
" Fisher's Buildings," erected at the cost of a 
former Fellow in 1769. The fourth drawing 
is of the Garden Quadrangle with the 
Chapel on the left (rebuilt in 1856) ; here the 
surroundings are more attractive; we are 
looking on **a grove of Academe," in which 
vigorous minds may still, as heretofore, grow 
happily towards their maturity. 



EXETER COLLEGE 

**n^HIS College," wrote Fuller the his- 

^ torian, In words which Exeter men 

will approve, **consisteth chiefly of Cornish 

and Devonshire men, the gentry of which 

latter. Queen Elizabeth used to say, were 

courtiers by their birth. And as these 

western men do bear away the bell for might 

and sleight in wrestling, so the scholars here 

have always acquitted themselves with credit 

in PalcBstra liter aria.'' 

The western College was founded in 13 14 

by Walter de Stapledon, Bishop of Exeter, 

who twelve years later met his death as a 

supporter of Edward 11., when that king 

was overthrown and murdered. A later 

and liberal patron was Sir William Petre, 

father of Dorothy Wadham, a statesman of 

the Tudor period. Of the ancient buildings 

of Exeter hardly anything remains. The 

57 



58 OXFORD 

Hall dates from the seventeenth century, the 
fronts to the Turl and Broad Streets from 
the nineteenth. The present Chapel is the 
third in which Exeter men have worshipped. 
Designed by Sir Gilbert Scott on the model 
of the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, it is certainly 
the most attractive of the College buildings. 
Its interior is richly decorated, and contains 
a tapestry representing "The Visit of the 
Magi," the work of Burne-Jones and William 
Morris, formerly undergraduates of Exeter. 

Among interesting members of this Found- 
ation may be cited Dr. Prideaux, Rector 
from 1612 to 1642, who began residence at 
Exeter as a kitchen-knave, and lived to be a 
Bishop ; the first Lord Shaftesbury, Dryden s 
" Achitophel " ; the Marquis of Winchester, 
a loyal Cavalier, whose epitaph by the same 
poet may be read in Englefield Church, 
Berkshire ; William Browne, author of 
Britannia s Pastorals \ and Sir Simon 
Baskerville (pb. 1641), an eminent physician, 
who would take no fee from any clergyman 
under the rank of dean. The Fellows' 
Gardens, a secluded and beautiful spot, con- 




EXETER COLLEGE CHAPEL 



EXETER COLLEGE 59 

tains two noted trees, a large chestnut 
known as " Heber's Tree," from the fact that 
it overshadowed his rooms in Brasenose, and 
** Dr. Kennicott's Fig Tree." Dr. Kennicott, 
the great Hebrew scholar, regarded this tree 
as peculiarly his own. During his proctorate, 
some irreverent undergraduates stole its 
fruit, upon which Dr. Kennicott caused a 
board to be hung upon it, inscribed ** The 
Proctor's Fig." Next morning it was dis- 
covered that someone had substituted the 
audacious legend, ** A fig for the Proctor." 




ORIEL STREET 



ORIEL COLLEGE 

i^RIEL COLLEGE was founded by 
^^ Adam de Brome, almoner to King 
Edward ii., in 1324. He was Rector of St. 
Mary's, whose spire forms with the dome of 
the Radcliffe a background to the view of 
Oriel Street, and obtained leave from the 
king to transfer the Church and its revenues 
to his College. The College originally had 
the same title as the Church, but five years 
after its foundation it received from King 
Edward iii. a messuage known as La Oriole 
(a title of disputed meaning), and from this 
date was renamed ** Oriel College." 

The Front Quadrangle, whose exterior and 
interior are here depicted, was erected in the 
first half of the seventeenth century. Viewed 
from without, it has an air of quiet dignity ; 
but the visitor will be even better pleased 
when he has passed the Porter's Lodge. A 
striking feature is the central flight of steps, 

61 



62 OXFORD 

with a portico, by which the Hall is reached. 
On either side of the statues of the two 
kings (Edward ii. and Charles i.) stretches 
a trio of finely moulded windows, flanked by 
an oriel to right and left. Mr. Matthison 
clearly made his drawing when the '* Quad." 
was gay with flowers and Eights -week 
visitors, but at no season is it anything but 
beautiful. The Garden Quadrangle, which 
lies to the north and includes the Library, 
was built during the eighteenth century. 
The adjacent St. Mary Hall, with its build- 
ings, was recently incorporated with Oriel, 
on the death of its last Principal, Dr. Chase. 
Among famous men nurtured at this Col- 
lege were Raleigh, Prynne, Bishop Butler, 
and Gilbert White, the naturalist ; but it was 
in the first half of the nineteenth century 
that Oriel's intellectual renown was at its 
highest. To recall the names of Pusey, 
Keble, Newman, Whately, and Thomas 
Arnold suffices to indicate the subject which 
most preoccupied the Oxford of that epoch. 
Oriel seemed fated to be the seat of religious 
controversy, from the seventeenth century 



ORIEL COLLEGE 63 

days of Provost Walter Hodges, whose 
Elikuy a treatise on the Book of Job, 
brought him into suspicion of favouring 
the sect of Hutchinsonians. Happily there 
was some tincture of humour in the differ- 
ences of those days. When this Provost 
resented the imputation, his detractors told 
him that a writer on the Book of Job 
should take everything with patience. 
Controversy apart, any College might be 
proud of a group of Fellows of whom one 
became an archbishop, another a really 
great headmaster, and a third a cardinal. 
Oriel has had poets, too, within her gates, 
for in a later day Clough and Matthew 
Arnold won fellowships here. 

But Oriel has had no more dutiful son, if 
liberality is any measure of dutifulness, than 
Cecil Rhodes. It is too soon to appraise the 
value of his scholarship scheme, which pro- 
vides an Oxford education for numerous 
colonial and foreign students ; but his old 
College, which benefited so largely by the 
provisions of his will, can have no hesitation 
in including him among its benefactors. 



QUEEN'S COLLEGE 

y^PINIONS will differ as to whether the 
^^ Italian style, of which this College is a 
fine example, is as suitable for collegiate 
buildings as the Gothic, and whether the 
contrast which Queen's presents to its neigh- 
bour, University, is not more striking than 
pleasing; but the intrinsic splendour of its 
fagade, as viewed from ** The High," is indis- 
putable. " No spectacle," said Dr. Johnson, 
*' is nobler than a blaze " ; and those who saw 
the west wing of the Front Quadrangle of 
Queen's in flames, one summer night in 1886, 
must have felt their regrets tempered by 
admiration, so imposing was the sight. 
Happily the damage was mainly confined to 
the interior of the building. A fire had 
already devastated the same wing in 1778. 
On that occasion, as Mr. Wells narrates in 
Oxford and its Colleges^ the Provost of 
5 



66 OXFORD 

the day ''nearly lost his life for the sake of 
decorum. He was sought for in vain, and 
had been given up, when he suddenly 
emerged from the burning pile, full dressed 
as usual, in wig, gown, and bands." This 
recalls Cowley's story of a gentleman in the 
Civil Wars, who might have escaped from his 
captors had he not stayed to adjust his perri- 
wig. Less fortunate than the Provost, his 
sense of ceremony cost him his life. 

Queen's College was founded by Robert 
Eglesfield of Cumberland, Confessor to 
Philippa, Edward iii.'s queen. Impressed 
with the lack of facilities for education among 
Englishmen of the North, he practically 
restricted the benefits of his Foundation to 
students from the north country, and Queen's 
is still intimately connected with that part of 
England. Philippa did her best for her 
Confessor's institution, and later queens 
have shewn a similar interest. The statue 
under the cupola, above the gateway, 
represents Queen Caroline. 

With the exception of the Library (1696) 
and the east side of the Inner Quadrangle, all 



QUEEN'S COLLEGE Q7 

the present buildings were erected in the 
eighteenth century. The Library, a hand- 
some room in the classical style, was decor- 
ated by Grinling Gibbons, and contains, as 
well as a very valuable collection of books, 
ancient portraits on glass of Henry v. and 
Cardinal Beaufort. The Chapel (17 14) was 
designed by Wren, and the Front Quadrangle 
by his pupil Hawksmoor. 

Queen's is tenacious of her old customs. 
Still the trumpet calls the Fellows to dinner ; 
still, on Christmas day, the boar's head is 
brought in 

bedecked with bays and rosemary ; 
a survival, possibly, of the pagan custom by 
which at Yule-tide a boar was sacrificed to 
Freyr, god of peace and plenty. 

Peace and plenty, at any rate, have 
characterised the annals of Queen's; and 
among those who have enjoyed these good 
things within her walls may be mentioned 
*' Prince Hal," Addison (before his migration 
to Magdalen), Tickell, Wycherley, Bentham, 
Jeffrey of the Edinburgh Review, and Dr. 
Thomson, late Archbishop of York. 




EDMUND'S HALL, QUEEN'S, AND ST. PETER's-IN-THE-EAST 



ST. EDMUND HALL 

TTALLS for the accommodation of 
-*• -■■ students existed in Oxford before 
Colleges were founded, and a few were estab- 
lished subsequently ; of these St. Edmund Hall 
is the only one which retains its independence. 
The quaintness and irregular beauty of its 
buildings may plead with stern reformers for 
its continued survival. 

Opposite to the side entrance of Queen s, 
St. Edmund Hall is in another respect under 
the wing of that College ; for Queen s has 
the right of nominating its Principal. 

The origin of St. Edmund Hall is 
uncertain, but it is commonly supposed to 
derive its name from Edmund Rich, Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury from 1234 to 1240. 
Its buildings, grouped round three sides of 
an oblong quadrangle, date from the middle 
of the seventeenth century. 



70 OXFORD 

The first view shews the entrance to the 
Hall, with the interesting old Church of St. 
Peter-in-the-East in the background. The 
crypt and chancel of this Church take us back 
to the times of the Conqueror, and may have 
been the work of Robert D'Oily, one of 
William's Norman followers, who is known 
to have built Oxford Castle. 

I n the view of the interior of the Quadrangle 
the building at the back is the Library ; the 
abundance of creepers on the left hand adds 
to the idea of comfort suggested by the 
homeliness of the architecture. 

The third illustration shews the Hall as 
seen from St. Peter's Churchyard. The 
vicinity of the monuments may serve to 
remind members of the Hall of their mortality. 

Hearne, the antiquary, was a member of 
St. Edmund Hall ; so also was Sir Richard 
Blackmore, who was in residence for thirteen 
years. It was his lot, says Johnson, *'to be 
much oftener mentioned by enemies than by 
friends " ; but this is hardly surprising, in 
view of the interminable epics which he 
inflicted upon his contemporaries. 



NEW COLLEGE 

nr^HIS College, in respect of its buildings 
-^ and its endowments, is one of the 
most splendid in the University. Its founder, 
William of Wykeham, rose through the 
favour of Edward iii. to high positions in 
Church and State, being made Bishop of 
Winchester in 1366 and Chancellor of 
England in the following year. He was a 
man of affairs, liberal and tolerant, who took 
delight in building, and had himself great 
skill in architecture. He had already, before 
he designed New College, as Clerk of the 
Works to Edward iii., rebuilt Windsor 
Castle. Doubtless, zeal for education was 
one of his incentives ; but he must have 
known a deep gratification, as the work went 
on, in the growth of the stately buildings 
which were to perpetuate his name. Richard 
II. 's sanction was given in 1379, and 

71 



72 OXFOKD 

Wykeham's Society took possession of its 
completed home in 1386. During the six 
years which followed, its founder was 
occupied with the building of Winchester 
College, the other great institution connected 
with his name. He died in 1404, in his 
eightieth year, and was buried in Winchester 
Cathedral, having lived long enough to see 
his two Foundations prosperously started 
upon their several careers. 

New College, as left by William of Wyke- 
ham, consisted of the chief Quadrangle (which 
includes the Chapel, Hall, and Library), the 
Cloisters with their tower, and the gardens. 
It is this Quadrangle (shewing the Chapel) 
which appears in Mr. Matthisons first 
drawing ; but it is not quite as Wykeham 
saw it, for the third storey was added, as at 
Brasenose, in the seventeenth century, when 
the windows also were modernised. 

Passing through this Quadrangle, the 
visitor reaches the Garden Court, which is 
also the creation of the seventeenth century, 
and was built in imitation of the Palace of 
Versailles. Seen from the garden (as in the 



NEW COLLEGE 73 

second illustration) it certainly has, with its 
fivefold frontage and its extensive iron 
palisade, a most imposing appearance. 

The garden contains a structure older by 
several centuries than any of the Colleges — 
that fragment of the old City Wall which is 
shewn in Mr. Matthison's third drawing. 
Its reverse side is visible from the back of 
Long Wall Street, and another fragment 
now acts as the wall of Merton garden. 
The city wall existed in its entirety in 
Wykeham's time, though already falling into 
decay : there is a brief of Richard ii., issued 
to the then mayor and burgesses of Oxford, 
wherein the king complains of the ruinous 
state of the fortifications, and demands that 
they be at once repaired. He thought of 
taking refuge in Oxford, it appears, if his 
enemies in France should invade the country. 
He was soon to learn, at Flint Castle, how 
impotent is any masonry to protect a 
sovereign against subjects whose affections 
he has estranged. One may climb the old 
wall in New College garden and think of 
the days when it was a real defence, when the 



74 OXFORD 

occupants of the ** mural houses" at its base 
were exempted from all imposts, with the 
reservation that they should defend the wall 
with their bodies, in the event of an enemy's 
assault. On some part of the ground now 
occupied by the College and its garden stood 
several of those Halls where students lodged 
in the pre-collegiate days ; but the greater 
part was waste land, strewn with rubbish and 
haunted by all sorts of bad characters. 
Certainly the whole community benefited, 
and not Wykeham's scholars only, when 
king and pope sanctioned his under- 
taking. 

The Cloisters, of which two views are 
given, are singularly beautiful. They were 
designed, together with the area which they 
enclose, as a burial-ground for the College. 
It is unfortunate that many of the brass 
tablets were removed during the Civil War, 
when the College was used as a garrison. 
Royalist pikes, in those days, were trailed in 
the Quadrangle, and ammunition was stored 
in Cloisters and Tower. Later on the 
College was tenanted by soldiers of the 



%^^. 



¥ 




NEW COLLEGE CLOISTERS 



NEW COLLEGE 75 

Commonwealth, who in course of fortifying 
it did some damage to the buildings. 

The Chapel is perhaps the finest extant 
specimen of the Perpendicular style. It 
suffered severely during the Reformation, 
when the niches of the reredos were denuded 
and filled up with stone and mortar, with a 
coat of plaster over all. In course of time 
the original east end was rediscovered, and 
the reredos renewed. By 1894 statues were 
erected in the niches ; and as the open 
timber roof had been replaced in 1880, the 
whole may now be considered to have been 
restored, as far as is possible, to its original 
appearance. The west window (in the ante- 
chapel) is famous as having been designed 
by Reynolds. An illustration of it is here 
given. The beauty of the figures and of the 
colouring is universally admitted. 

The last illustration shews the New Build- 
ings, through which is a back entrance to the 
College, as seen from Holywell Street. Of 
these it must be said that they are far less 
interesting than the quaint old street in which 
they are situated. The best of them is the 



76 OXFORD 

most recent addition, a fine tower put up in 
1880 to the memory of a former Bursar, Mr. 
Robinson. 

The Hall is a fine building, though its 
original proportions have been altered, not 
for the better. Here on August 29, 1605, 
King James i. with his queen and the 
Prince of Wales were entertained to dinner ; 
and here on festival days the scholars were 
bidden by their Founder to amuse them- 
selves after supper with singing and with 
recitations, whose themes were to be "the 
chronicles of the realm and the wonders of 
the world." On the walls are portraits of 
Chichele and William of Waynflete, members 
of the College, who were presently to rival, 
as Founders, the munificence of William of 
Wykeham himself ; of Warham, Archbishop 
of Canterbury, friend of Erasmus and 
promoter of humanism ; and of Sydney 
Smith. 

The exclusive connection between Win- 
chester and New College, which the Founder 
planned, proved in course of time a disadvan- 
tage. In 1857 half the fellowships and a 




VIEW FROM CLOISTERS, NEW COLLE 




NEW COLLEGE WINDOW 



NEW COLLEGE 11 

few scholarships were thrown open to public 
competition. Since then the College has 
largely increased its numbers, and represent- 
atives of all the great schools of England are 
sojourners within its walls. The Founder's 
motto, ** Manners Makyth Man," is of too 
wide an application to be limited to the 
members of any one school ; and it is per- 
missible to think that William of Wykeham, 
shrewd and liberal-minded as he was, would 
approve the change. An earlier alteration 
he would certainly have endorsed. He 
secured as a special privilege to the Fellows 
of his Foundation, that they should be ad- 
mitted to all degrees in the University without 
asking any grace of congregation, provided 
they passed a satisfactory examination in 
their own College. His object was to 
impose a severer educational test than that 
which the University then afforded ; when, 
however, University examinations became a 
reality, his good intention was nullified. 
Wykehamists pleaded their privilege, and so 
evaded the ordeal which members of other 
Colleges must undergo. Thus was an 



78 OXFORD 

originally good custom corrupted. The 
College, to its credit, voluntarily abjured 
this questionable privilege in 1834; and is 
now second only to Balliol in the intellectual 
race. 



Iprv^ :i^^i^^x~m^iid^^i:mm^. 




NEW COLLEGE FROM HOLYWELL STREET 



LINCOLN COLLEGE 

JOHN FLEMMYNGE, Bishop of Lin- 
coln, was for the greater part of his life 
a sympathiser with the Lollards ; but on 
changing his opinions — for what reason is 
not known — he founded a College for the 
express purpose of training divines who 
should confute their doctrines. Such was 
the origin of Lincoln College, in the year 
1429. 

Mr. Matthison's first picture shews the 
entrance to the College, as seen from Turl 
Street. Farther on is a part of the front 
of Exeter, and the spire of its Chapel, 
with Trinity in the background. Lincoln's 
entrance-tower dates from the Founder's 
time. 

The second gives the interior of the Front 
Quadrangle. Reference to old engravings, 

such as that given in Chalmers' History of 

79 



80 OXFORD 

the Colleges, Halls, and Public Buildings of 
the University of Oxford (1810), shews the 
battlements to be a modern addition, and 
anything but an improvement. 

The Chapel, which stands in the inner 
court, was built at the expense of Dr. John 
Williams, Bishop of Lincoln and afterwards 
Archbishop of York, and was consecrated on 
September 15, 1631. Its roof and wainscot- 
ing are of cedar, the roof in particular being 
richly ornamented. The painted windows 
are also noteworthy. Tradition says that 
they were bought by Dr. Williams in Italy. 
That at the east end represents six principal 
events of the gospel narrative, with their 
corresponding types in the Old Testament. 
The following is the complete list : — The 
Creation of Man — the Nativity of Christ ; the 
Passage through the Red Sea — the Baptism 
of Christ ; the Jewish Passover — the Lord's 
Supper ; the Brazen Serpent in the Wilder- 
ness — the Crucifixion ; Jonah delivered from 
the Whale — the Resurrection ; the Ascent of 
Elijah in the Chariot of Fire — the Ascension. 

John Wesley spent nine years in Lincoln 




..INCOLN AND EXETER COLLEGE 



LINCOLN COLLEGE 81 

College, being elected Fellow in 1726. 
Among its members may be named Sir 
William Davenant, Poet Laureate ; and Dr. 
Robert Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln, a man 
of great piety, learning, and amiability, who 
forms the theme of one of Izaak Walton's 
Lives. It is to him that our English 
Liturgy owes the beautiful " Prayer for all 
Conditions of Men" and *' General Thanks- 
giving." A recent Rector of Lincoln was 
Mark Pattison, B.D., who might rival 
Sanderson in learning, though not in the 
quality of forbearance. His Memoirs, 
posthumously published, contained, with 
much that was of interest, some unusually 
outspoken judgments upon his contem- 
poraries in Oxford. 



ALL SOULS COLLEGE 

/^^ OLLEGIUM Omnium Animarum 

^ Fidelium defunctorum de Oxon. 

This title expresses one of the pur- 
poses for which All Souls was founded. 
It was a Chantry first, a home of learning 
afterwards. An obligation was imposed 
upon the Society to pray for the good estate 
of the Founders, during their lives, and for 
their souls after their decease ; also for the 
souls of Henry v. and the Duke of Clarence, 
together with those of all the dukes, earls, 
barons, knights, esquires, and other subjects 
of the Crown of England who had fallen in 
the French War ; and for the souls of all the 
faithful departed. To think of All Souls is 
to think of Agincourt. 

As to learning, sixteen of the Fellows 
were directed to study civil and canon law, 
the rest philosophy, theology, and the arts. 



84 OXFORD 

The Founders were Henry Chichele, 
Archbishop of Canterbury, and King 
Henry vi. Chichele is the Archbishop who 
in Shakespeare's King Henry v. urges 
the king (quite in accordance with history) 
to vindicate his claims to the crown of 
France. Educated in all the prejudices of 
his age, he set his face against the followers 
of Wyckliffe ; at the same time he protested 
against the encroachments of Rome, and was 
spoken of in Oxford as '' the darling of the 
people, and the foster-parent of the clergy." 
He was deeply read in the law, and All 
Souls still bears the impress of his legal tastes. 

The buildings are very extensive, and are 
grouped around three quadrangles. The 
first view (which gives also a glimpse of the 
Radcliffe and the Old Schools) shews the 
front of the North Quadrangle, as seen from 
St. Catherine Street, with the windows of 
the magnificent Codrington Library. 

But the Library is eclipsed, in general 
opinion, by the Chapel. ** It is usually 
observed," says Chalmers, ''that whatever 
visitor remembers anything of Oxford, 




RADCLIFFE LIBRARY, SCHOOLS, AND ALL SOULS 




THE REREDOS, ALL SOULS CHAPEL 



ALL SOULS COLLEGE 85 

remembers the beautiful Chapel of All Souls, 
and joins in its praises." It is characterised 
by dignity and simplicity, and its great 
reredos has a remarkable history. The 
Chapel was wrecked in Reformation days, 
and the remains of the reredos were covered 
with plaster in the reign of Charles ii. In 
1870 some workmen accidentally discovered, 
on removing some of the plaster, the ruins 
of the now forgotten reredos. It was then 
reconstructed, and the empty niches refilled 
with statues of Chichele, Henry vi., and the 
great ones of their time. The College also 
owns a fine sundial, the work of Sir Chris- 
topher Wren, who was one of its Fellows. 

The four Bible-clerks, as is well known, 
are the only undergraduates. An All Souls' 
Fellowship is now what an Oriel Fellowship 
was in the early part of the nineteenth 
century, the blue ribbon of Oxford. Since 
its foundation in 1437 the following are a 
few of the eminent men who have been 
members of this Society : — Linacre, Sheldon, 
Jeremy Taylor, the poet Young, Blackstone, 
and Bishop Heber. 



MAGDALEN COLLEGE 

^1 riLLIAM OF WAYNFLETE, who 
^ ^ founded this College, was brought up 
in the traditions of William of Wykeham, and 
maintained them most worthily. A member 
of Wykeham's school, and perhaps of New 
College, he became Headmaster of Winchester, 
only leaving it to act as first Headmaster of 
Eton, on the foundation of that College by 
Henry VI. Like Wykeham he lived through 
troubled times, and like him occupied the 
see of Winchester and was Chancellor of 
England. The latter post he resigned in 
the last year of Henry vi., but remained 
Bishop of Winchester until his death in i486. 
He was buried in Winchester Cathedral, 
where eighty-two years earlier Wykeham 
had been laid to rest. 

On the present site of Magdalen College 
stood an old hospital, named after St. John 

87 



88 OXFORD 

the Baptist. This hospital, with its grounds, 
was made over to William of Waynflete in 
1457 ; some remains of its buildings still 
survive in what is known as the Chaplains' 
Quadrangle ; and in this hospital the new 
society found temporary shelter. Waynflete 
did not proceed at once to build his new 
College ; the times were disturbed, and with 
the victory of the Torkist faction he found 
himself in some peril. Pardoned, however, 
by Edward iv., he was at liberty to carry 
out his designs. If not his own architect, 
he certainly superintended the building ; and 
with the exception of the famous Tower, the 
work was completed before his death. 

In the result, taste has generally decided, 
what most visitors feel instinctively at first 
sight, that Magdalen is the most beautiful 
College in Oxford. This distinction it owes 
partly to the perfect proportions of its build- 
ings, and partly to the loveliness of its 
surroundings. To assure oneself of this, 
one may take a boat up the Cherwell (as the 
people in Mr. Matthison s first drawing have 
done), and, while the sculls rest idly on the 



--'%. 




MAGDALEN TOWER, FROM ADDISON S WALK 




THE OUTSIDE STONE PULl'IT, MAGDALEN COLLEGE 



MAGDALEN COLLEGE 89 

water's surface, drink deeply of the beauty 
of the scene. 

The foundation stone of the famous Tower 
(which from different points of view appears 
in three more of the illustrations) was laid in 
1492. Tradition says that it was designed 
by Wolsey, who was about that time Bursar 
of Magdalen; and also asserts that a mass 
for the soul of Henry vii. used, before the 
Reformation, to be performed upon the top 
of the Tower on every May-day at early 
morning. It is certain that a hymn is still 
sung there annually at that season, as those 
who are up early enough may hear for 
themselves. 

Whether one approaches Magdalen by the 
water-way or by **The High"— as in the 
second illustration— the Tower is still the 
dominant feature of the view. On the left 
are seen St. Swithun's Buildings, designed in 
happy harmony with the older structure. 
When the Lodge is passed, one is confronted 
with the old stone pulpit (sketched by Mrs. 
Walton), from which an open-air sermon was 
formerly preached on St. John the Baptist's 



90 OXFORD 

day.^ The court on that occasion used to be 
fenced round with green boughs, in allusion 
to St. John's preaching in the wilderness. 

The Cloisters are next entered, from which 
is obtained a splendid view of Waynflete s 
Quadrangle and Tower (the "Founder's 
Tower" of the next illustration). The 
perfect grace of Magdalen is here revealed, 
and praise becomes superfluous. The Chapel, 
Hall, and Library open out of this Quadrangle. 
The College choir is among the best in the 
three kingdoms. 

Many theories have been suggested in 
explanation of the curious stone figures in 
the Quadrangle, which were put up after 
Waynflete's day. The most reasonable 
appears to be that which makes them repre- 
sent the several virtues and vices which 
members of the College should follow after 
and eschew. But even so that interpretation 
seems a little forced which makes the hippo- 
potamus, carrying his young one on his 
shoulder, emblematic of '*a good tutor, or 
Fellow of a College, who is set to watch 
1 This custom has recently been revived. 



\ ^k'-i. 




THE founders' TOWER, MAGDALEN COLLEGE 



MAGDALEN COLLEGE 91 

over the youth of the society, and by whose 
prudence they are to be led through the dan- 
gers of their first entrance into the world." ^ 

To speak now of the three remaining 
illustrations, the first shews the garden, 
reached from the Quadrangle, the exterior of 
which forms the background of the picture. 
From here a good view is obtained of the 
new buildings, a stately eighteenth- century 
pile, which adjoin the deer park; a part of 
them, as well as of the deer park, is seen in 
Mr. Matthison's sketch. Finally, he gives his 
impression of the College as seen at evening 
from the entrance of Addison's Walk, with 
the Tower blue-grey against a paling sky. 

That walk, which commemorates *'the 
famous Mr. Joseph Addison," as Esmond 
called him, was in part, at any rate, laid out 
in Queen Elizabeth's day ; and here the 
future essayist may have often strolled and 
meditated, in the exercise of that gift of ** a 
most profound silence" with which, half in 
jest, he credited himself. There stood in his 
time at the entrance of the water-walk an oak, 
1 Oedipus Magdalensis, in the College Library. 



92 OXFORD 

which for centuries had been, according to 
Chalmers, " the admiration of many genera- 
tions." Evelyn, the diarist, commemorates 
its huge proportions. It was overthrown by 
a storm in 1789, and a chair made of its 
wood is preserved in the President's lodgings. 

Magdalen in its time has welcomed many 
royal visitors, among them Edward iv. in 
1 48 1, and Richard iii. in 1483. Richard was 
so pleased with the disputations provided for 
his entertainment that he presented the two 
protagonists (one of them was Grocyn, the 
Greek scholar) with a buck apiece and money 
as well. Other guests were Arthur, Prince 
of Wales, elder son of Henry vii., and 
Henry, son of James i., whose great promise 
was cut short by an early death. Cromwell 
and Fairfax dined at Magdalen, when they 
received the degree of D.C.L. in 1649, and, 
instead of hearing the usual disputations, 
played at bowls upon the College green. 

Meanwhile the College had educated its 
fair share of prominent men : Wolsey ; Colet, 
afterwards Dean of St. Paul's ; Cardinal Pole; 
William Tyndale, translator of the Bible; 



I '^fTf^l 




MAGDALEN COLLEGE 93 

Lyiy, whose Euphues gave a name to a 
certain style of writing ; and John Hampden. 
A notable President (1561) was Dr. Laurence 
Humphrey, who was among the Genevan 
exiles in Queen Mary's time. On his return 
he retained the Genevan dislike for ecclesias- 
tical vestments, but was persuaded to wear 
them on the occasion of Queen Elizabeth's 
visit to Oxford. *' Mr. Doctor," said the 
queen, who was aware of his usual practice, 
'* that loose gown becomes you mighty well. 
I wonder your notions should be so narrow." 
The life of a College is in general self- 
contained, but in the last year of James ii.'s 
reign Magdalen becomes for a time the 
centre of a constitutional struggle. There is 
no more glorious page in her annals. James 
II. had done his best to turn University 
College into a Roman Catholic seminary, and 
had made a professor of that religion Dean 
of Christ Church. He now sought to impose 
upon the Fellows of Magdalen a President 
of his own choosing, one Farmer, a papist, 
and a man of known bad character. The 
Fellows replied by electing one of their own 



94 OXFORD 

number, John Hough, upon which they were 
cited before the Court of High Commission 
and bullied by Judge Jeffreys, while Hough's 
election was declared invalid. Farmer was 
so generally discredited that the king did 
not press his claims, but shortly afterwards 
nominated in his stead Dr. Parker, Bishop 
of Oxford. When the Fellows respectfully 
refused to accept him. Hough and twenty-six 
Fellows were forcibly ejected, as well as many 
of the ''demies" (or scholars) who sym- 
pathised with their action. Parker died after 
a few months' tenure of office, when James 
named Gifford, a Roman Catholic, as his 
successor. It was only in October 1688, 
when moved to terror by the Declaration of 
William of Orange, that the king, among 
other concessions, cancelled Gifford's appoint- 
ment and restored Dr. Hough and the ejected 
Fellows. But then, as we know, all con- 
cessions were too late. Hough remained 
President until 1701. 

During the eighteenth century Magdalen 
was not exempt from the general somnolence 
which pervaded the University. Gibbon's 



MAGDALEN COLLEGE 95 

residence there was cut short by his becoming 
a Roman Catholic. His harsh judgment of 
the College, warped as it was, cannot be 
entirely refuted. Famous nineteenth-century 
members of Magdalen were Robert Lowe, 
Lord Selborne, Charles Reade, and Professor 
Mozley. At present it does not look as if 
the charge of inactivity could ever again be 
preferred against Waynflete's Foundation. 




ST. MARY S ENTRY AND KRASENOSE COLLEGE 



BRASENOSE COLLEGE 

^ I ^HE first thing about this College to excite 
-^ a stranger's curiosity is its name. 
The explanation is trivial enough. Brase- 
nose Hall (which was in existence in the 
thirteenth century and became Brasenose 
College in 1 509) was so called from the brass 
knocker — the head of a lion with a very 
prominent nose— which adorned its gateway. 
In 1334 the members of the Hall, from what- 
ever reason, migrated into Lincolnshire, 
taking the knocker with them, and set 
up their rest at Stamford. '* There is in 
Stamford," wrote Antony Wood, *'a building 
in St. Paul's parish, near to one of the tower 
gates, called Brazenose to this day, and has 
a great gate, and a wicket, upon which wicket 
is a head or face of old cast brass, with a 
ring through the nose thereof It had also 
a fair refectory within, and is at this time 
7 



98 OXFORD 

written in leases and deeds Brazen Nose." 
This building was bought by '' B. N. C." (to 
adopt Oxford phraseology) in 1890, and the 
knocker brought back to Oxford, none the 
worse for its prolonged rustication. 

The College named after this venerable 
relic owes its foundation to a pair of friends, 
William Smyth, Bishop of Lincoln, and Sir 
Richard Sutton of Sutton, in the county of 
Cheshire, an ecclesiastically -minded layman, 
who became Steward of the monastery of 
Sion, near Brentford. *' Unmarried himself," 
the knight's biographer Informs us, ''and not 
anxious to aggrandize his family, Sir Richard 
Sutton bestowed handsome benefactions and 
kind remembrances among his kinsmen ; but 
he wedded the public, and made posterity his 
heir." 

The College which grew up under the 
personal supervision of these two friends, 
occupies the ground on which stood no less 
than eight Halls : a fact which seems to 
shew that these institutions were not large 
in bulk. The Founders purchased Brasenose 
Hall, Little University Hall, Salisbury Hall, 




THE GATEWAY AND TOWER, BRASENOSE COLLEGE 



BRASENOSE COLLEGE 99 

with St. Mary's Entry — a picturesque lane, 
which appears in the first of Mr. Matthison's 
illustrations ; and five more. Tennyson's 
phrase, *'the tumult of the Halls," must 
have been peculiarly applicable in mediaeval 
Oxford. Distinctly mediaeval were the statues 
of the new Foundation ; those who drew 
them up adhered to the training of the 
schoolmen, and made no provision for the 
new learning. When John Claymond, first 
President of Corpus, endowed six scholar- 
ships at Brasenose (in 1536), he stipulated 
that the scholars appointed should attend the 
lectures of the Latin and Greek Readers of 
his own College. However, Brasenose had 
her own lecturers in these humaner studies, 
before the century was out. 

If one would see the Front Quadrangle as 
the Founders viewed it, when the last stones 
from Headington quarries were put in their 
places, he must imagine it deprived of its 
third tier of windows and its parapet, for 
these are Jacobean additions. The altera- 
tion, so far as it affected the outside, can 
hardly have been for the better; for the 

LOFC. 



100 OXFORD 

additional storey has certainly dwarfed the 
proportions of the fine Tower, which, with its 
Gateway, is the most striking feature of the 
second picture. As to the interior of the 
Quadrangle — sketched by Mr. Matthison 
from two points of view — it is less easy to 
form an opinion ; the dormer windows are 
so quaintly ornamental that the severest 
critic may hesitate to wish them gone. 

Architecture of a totally different order 
meets the eye when the Inner Quadrangle is 
reached, as a glance at the final illustration 
proves ; for the Italian style is much in 
evidence. The foundation stone of the 
present Chapel, which represented an older 
one, was laid in 1656, and tradition attributes 
the design of it, as well as that of the Library, 
to Sir Christopher Wren, who was then quite 
a young man. Its windows are Gothic, but 
the Corinthian pilasters and the general idea 
of the structure shew that the architect's 
adherence was divided between the older and 
newer methods. The ceiling is elaborately 
carved in fanwork tracery. The Library 
stands between the Chapel and the south 



BRASENOSE COLLEGE 101 

side of the Quadrangle. There is a curious 
regulation in the statutes directing that each 
volume it contained should be described in 
the catalogue by the first word on the second 
leaf. The reason of this is that the first leaf, 
being often splendidly illuminated, was liable 
to be torn out by dishonest borrowers ; and 
as it was important to be able to identify a 
book, this could best be done by noting the 
first word on the second page, because it 
would very seldom happen that two copyists 
would begin that page with the same word. 
Hence the initial word of the second leaf of 
a manuscript would in all probability mark 
that individual copy and no other. 

Famous members of Brasenose College 
were Foxe, the historian of the Martyrs ; 
Robert Burton, author of the Anatomy of 
Melancholy — we may be sure he used the 
Library ; John Marston, satirist and drama- 
tist, who, along with Ben Jonson and 
Chapman, was thrown into prison for vilifying 
the Scotch in Eastward Ho\ Sir Henry 
Savile, afterwards Warden of Merton, 
Founder of the Savilian Professorship of 



102 OXFORD 

Astronomy ; Bishop Heber ; Henry Hart 
Milman, the historian; and more noted 
cricketers and oarsmen than we have space 
to mention. 

Nowell, Dean of St. Paul's, was chosen 
Principal of the College when in his ninetieth 
year, but resigned after two months of office. 
That was in the sixteenth century. 



CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE 

CORPUS — as this College is universally- 
known among Oxford men — was 
founded in 15 16, during the days of the 
**new learning," by Richard Foxe, Bishop 
of Winchester. Zealous for education, he 
took care that Greek as well as Latin should 
be taught to his scholars, appointing two 
'' Readers " in those tongues, whose lectures 
were to be open to the whole University. 
When, therefore, in 1853 Corpus endowed 
the new Latin Professorship, it was acting 
in the spirit of its Founder. That spirit, 
indeed, has animated the College throughout 
its history, for hard work (by no means 
divorced from athletic excellence) is tradi- 
tional at Corpus. 

Bishop Foxe's plate and crozier are still 
among the treasures of his Foundation. 

The first illustration shews the exterior of 

103 



104 OXFORD 

the College. Above the gateway a curious 
piece of sculpture represents ''Angels bear- 
ing the Host," or Corpus Christi, in a 
monstrance; on either side is a shield, the 
one engraved with Foxe's arms, the other 
with those of his see. 

The second picture gives the interior of 
the Front Quadrangle. It is perhaps not 
too fanciful to suggest that the solidity and 
simplicity of the architecture are in keeping 
with the characteristics which experience has 
taught us to look for in Corpus men. A 
touch of variety is given by the ancient 
cylindrical dial, constructed in 1581 by Sir 
Charles Turnbull, a Fellow. It is surmounted 
by the effigy of a pelican, a bird dear to 
Corpus. Another stone pelican, by the way, 
broods over the Library roof at Wadham. 

Jewel and Hooker among theologians, 
and Stowell and Tenterden among lawyers, 
belonged to Bishop Foxe's College. Here, 
too, was trained Oglethorpe, philanthropist 
and founder of Georgia, whom Pope chose 
as a type of ''strong benevolence of soul" 
and Johnson loved to honour ; and here 



\ . ,^ 




MERTON TOWER AND CORPUS CHRISTI GATEWAY 



CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE 105 

were passed in close friendship the under- 
graduate days of Arnold and Keble, who, 
though later estranged by differences of 
opinion on religious questions, still retained 
their old personal regard. 



CHRIST CHURCH 

IF Magdalen is the most beautiful of 
Oxford Colleges, Christ Church is 
assuredly the most magnificent. Building 
was one of the favourite pursuits of 
Cardinal Wolsey, first Founder of Christ 
Church, as it was of Wykeham and Wayn- 
flete before him : it is almost mysterious 
how men of this type, who had the highest 
affairs of the State as well as of the Church 
upon their shoulders, found so much leisure 
to devote to architecture. Wolsey s plans 
were cut short by his fall from power, but 
he had already shewn by his completed 
palace in Whitehall and by Hampton Court, 
which he built as a present for his sovereign, 
the grandeur and largeness of his ideas. 
Out of the revenues of suppressed monas- 
teries he had designed to establish a College 
far larger and far more richly endowed than 

107 



108 OXFORD 

any of its predecessors ; and three sides of 
the Great Quadrangle had arisen before he 
fell upon adversity. Then the king stopped 
the work, and for a century the unfinished 
structure stood as a reminder of 

Vaulting ambition, that o'erleaps itself, 
And falls o' the other side. 

Yet Wolsey had a public as well as a private 
ambition. He loved learning, and desired 
to promote it : he sought to save the Church 
by rearing instructed ministers for her ser- 
vice. If he failed, it was a noble failure ; 
for though Henry viii., who now assumed 
the title of Founder, sanctioned an es- 
tablishment less wide and generous than 
Wolsey proposed, even so the new College 
easily surpassed all others in the scale of 
its endowments. 

The finest view of Christ Church from 
without is that which is obtained from 
St. Aldates Street, and is shewn in Mr. 
Matthison's first drawing. ''Tom" Tower, 
which forms the centre of the fagade, was 
not part of the original scheme, but was 
added in 1682, when Dr. John Fell was 




rOM TOWER, CHRIST CHURCH 



CHRIST CHURCH 109 

Dean. The College owes a debt of gratitude 
to Dr. Fell for employing Wren as his 
architect, if for nothing else. Wolsey's gate, 
which was no higher than the two smaller 
towers between which his statue stands, 
might easily have been spoilt by a less skilful 
designer, but Wren added to its beauty, and 
made it one of the finest structures in 
Oxford. The Tower is named after the great 
bell which it contains, brought from Osney 
Abbey. Every night *' Tom " tolls a curfew 
of a hundred and one strokes at nine o'clock, 
and at the closing stroke all College gates are 
shut and all undergraduates supposed to be 
within their College walls. Dr. John Fell, by 
the way, is the Dr. Fell whom the epigram- 
matist disliked without being able to assign 
a cause. His pictures shew a forbidding 
countenance enough, but he deserved well of 
his College and the University. In addition 
to the Tower, he completed the front towards 
St. Aldate's, fostered the University Press, 
and did his best to make examinations a 
reality. He planted also the elms of the 
Broad Walk, a beautiful avenue which 



no OXFORD 

custom has decreed as the regulation pro- 
menade on "Show Sunday" (in Commemor- 
ation Week) ; but within the last twenty years 
storms have made havoc of the trees, and 
little of the Walk's former beauty remains. 

The Great Quadrangle — '' Tom Quad." in 
Oxford parlance — dwarfs by its large dimen- 
sions all the other courts of Oxford. The J 
arches and rib-mouldings indicate the original ''^ 
intention of the first builders, which was to 
surround the Quadrangle with a cloister. As 
it is, though this design was never carried 
out, the impression conveyed is one of great I 
splendour. Never is the appearance of 
'*Tom Quad." more effective than at the 
moment when the white-robed congregation 
comes out of the Cathedral doors. All under- 
graduates of ** The House " wear surplices — 
worn by scholars only, save here and at 
Keble — and the Cathedral is their Chapel. 
Mr. Matthison has chosen such a moment 
for his drawing, when the Quadrangle is in 
a moment flooded by the white surplices, 
varied here and there by the crimson hood 
of a Master or a Doctor's scarlet robes. 







£. S 



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CHRIST CHURCH 111 

On the left of the drawing appears the 
Cathedral spire ; in the centre the Belfry 
Tower, a solid and handsome structure 
put up in Dean Liddell's day ; and on 
the right the windows and pinnacles of the 
Hall. 

To approach the Hall one passes through 
the archway at the south-east corner of the 
Quadrangle, and ascends a wide staircase 
notable for the wonderful fanwork tracery 
of the ceiling. This tracery dates from the 
time of Dean Samuel Fell (father of Dr. 
John Fell), and was completed in 1640; it 
appears in Mr. Matthison's fourth drawing. 
The Hall itself (which is the subject of the 
next illustration) has no rival in Oxford and 
no superior in England, Westminster Hall 
only excepted. It measures 115 feet by 40, 
and is 50 feet in height. The window above 
the dais contains full length stained-glass 
representations of Wolsey, More, Erasmus, 
Colet, and other great men of the Reforma- 
tion era ; and the walls are hung with a very 
fine collection of portraits, including those of 
Henry viii. and Wolsey (by Holbein), Deans 



112 OXFORD 

Aldrich and Atterbury (by Kneller), Charles 
Wesley (by Romney), George Canning (by 
Lawrence), Gladstone (by Millais), ** Lewis 
Carroll" (by Herkomer), and Dean Liddell 
(by Watts). 

There is still much of Christ Church to 
explore, as the remaining illustrations indi- 
cate. From Merton Street one approaches 
''The House" by Canterbury Gate, which 
opens upon the small Canterbury Quadrangle 
(erected towards the end of the eighteenth 
century). Beyond is Peckwater Quadrangle, 
built in 1705 after the Italian model, on the 
site of Peckwater's Inn. The black and 
crumbling walls of this quadrangle are in 
striking contrast to the smooth surface of 
**Tom Quad.," but in the summer term, 
when every window is gay with flowers, the 
gloom of Peckwater is forgotten. On the 
right hand is the Library, which, beside books, 
contains an interesting collection of paintings 
of the early Italian schools. The outlook 
from the Meadow Buildings (1863), which 
includes the Broad Walk, the Long Walk, 
and glimpses of the River, is a pleasant 




THE CANTERBURY GATE, CHRIST CHURCH COLLEGE 




CHRIST CHURCH HALL AND STAIRCASE 



CHRIST CHUKCH 113 

one, though the buildings themselves are 
not, from the outside, particularly attrac- 
tive. 

Some of the famous sons of Christ Church 
have already been incidentally mentioned. 
As might be expected from its numerous 
muster-roll, it has had members who attained 
distinction in every walk of life ; but statistics 
seem to shew that there is something in 
the atmosphere of **The House" peculiarly 
favourable to the growth of statesmen. No 
other College, at any rate, has given England 
three premiers in succession, Mr. Gladstone 
(a double first), Lord Salisbury, and Lord 
Rosebery. To make an exhaustive list 
might weary the reader, but the honoured 
name of Sir Robert Peel must at least be 
mentioned. Strenuous as were these men's 
labours in after-life, it is permissible to fancy 
that amid the pleasant surroundings of their 
student days they did not altogether ** scorn 
delights." Here, for instance, is an extract 
from the diary kept by Charles Wesley when 
an undergraduate : '' Wrote to V. — trans- 
lated — played an hour at billiards." There 



114 OXFORD 

is no harm in supposing **V." a girl, if we 
choose. 

How strangely runs the little list 
Of Wesley's day, like Isis rippling. 

While yet the mighty Methodist 

'Mid striplings merry made, a stripling, 

to quote the words of an anonymous rhymer. 
Again, the expounding of mathematics term 
after term is a sober pursuit enough, yet 
C. L. Dodgson, mathematical tutor of 
Christ Church, had leisure to be " Lewis 
Carroll " also, the nursery classic, the delight 
of children of all ages. The serious purpose 
of John Ruskin, who as the anonymous 
'* Oxford Graduate " took the Art world by 
storm, could not extinguish his lambent 
humour. It is a part of the genius of Christ 
Church to keep alive a certain sunshine of 
the mind. Let us hope that this was the 
case even with her austerer thinkers ; with 
Locke, who was forced to leave the College 
on account of his Whig opinions ; with 
William Penn, who was sent down for non- 
conformity — you will find sunshine as well as 
shadow in his little volume. Some Fruits of 




THE BACK OF CHRIST CHURCH HALL 



CHRIST CHURCH 115 

Solitude, which he is thought to have 
composed, partly at any rate, in prison ; and 
with Dr. Pusey, as he searched for the way 
of perfection among the dusty folios of 
patristic lore. 



TRINITY COLLEGE 

^RINITY COLLEGE was founded by 
•*■ Sir Thomas Pope, a rich lawyer, in 
1555. The site was previously occupied by 
Durham College, a now extinct foundation, 
which existed for the training of students 
from the Benedictine monastery of Durham. 
There is much that is admirable about the 
buildings and grounds of Trinity ; and its 
position is so little secluded that anyone 
passing down Broad Street or Parks Road 
can hardly help noticing its beauties. The 
first illustration shews the College as seen 
from Broad Street. In the foreground are 
the handsome wrought-iron gates — there 
is a companion pair at the verge of the 
garden, in Parks Road — beyond which is 
the square Entrance Tower leading to the 
Small Quadrangle, decorated by four figures 
representing Astronomy, Geometry, Divinity, 

117 



118 OXFORD 

and Medicine. The old cottage buildings 
on the right of the Porter s Lodge, facing 
Broad Street, which are now used as College 
rooms, are in striking contrast with the new 
buildings designed by Mr. T. G. Jackson, 
R.A., and finished in 1887 ; these are some 
of the last century's most successful additions 
to ancient Oxford. 

The Chapel has an unwonted fragrance, for 
the wainscot is of cedar ; it is famous also 
for its carving, being in this particular one of 
the best examples of the work of Grinling 
Gibbons. The Hall has an unusually good 
collection of portraits. Of all the buildings 
the Buttery is probably the most ancient. 

The second illustration, taken from Parks 
Road, shews a part of the garden, with the 
Inner Quadrangle in the background ; this 
latter is built in the Italian manner, after 
Wren's design. The costume of the loiterers 
in the garden, of both sexes, suggests that 
Mr. Matthison painted his picture on some 
warm day of spring. On such a day it is 
pleasant to fleet the time carelessly amid 
such scenes as these ; nor must the beautiful 



TRINITY COLLEGE 119 

Lime Tree Walk escape mention, whose 
pleached boughs form a continuous archway 
of foliage. 

Trinity can point to a remarkably long 
list of distinguished members, of whom it 
may suffice to name here the poets Lodge 
and Denham, Harrington (author of 
Oceana), Chatham, Professor Freeman, 
Bishop Stubbs, and Richard Burton. But 
Burtons stay was a short one ; he heard 
already "the call of the wild." 



ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE 

A RCHBISHOP CHICHELE'S College 
-^^- of St. Bernard, established by him in 
1437 and suppressed by Henry viii., occupied 
the site of what is now St. John s College. 
One reminder of the older foundation is the 
statue of St. Bernard, which still stands in 
the Tower over the Gateway. This Gateway, 
sketched from St. Giles', forms the subject 
of the second illustration. The Hall and 
Chapel too, though much altered in later 
times, were in the first instance used by the 
Cistercians. 

St. John's was founded by Sir Thomas 
White, Lord Mayor of London, in 1555. 
His portrait hangs in the Hall, as well as 
those of Laud and Juxon, successively 
Presidents of the College and Archbishops 
of Canterbury, and that of George iii. St. 

John's was devoted to the Stuart cause, so it 

121 



122 OXFORD 

may be supposed that the likeness of the 
Hanoverian king was not hung without 
compunctions on the part of senior members. 
The Library contains a portrait of Charles i., 
and statues of him and of his queen face each 
other in the Inner Quadrangle. 

Reference has been already made to the 
second illustration. The first shews the 
exterior of the Front Quadrangle, sketched 
from within the walled row of elm trees. 
This Quadrangle was only finished in 1597, 
when its eastern side (facing the Gateway) 
was built. 

The Inner Quadrangle, which was begun 
at the same date and completed in the first 
half of the seventeenth century, is, from an 
architectural point of view, of unusual 
interest. The visitor may naturally inquire 
what two classical colonnades are doing in a 
Gothic quadrangle. There is no more 
satisfactory reply than that the architect, 
Inigo Jones, made a somewhat bold experi- 
ment, combining Italian reminiscences with 
a Gothic scheme. Individual taste may 
determine how far he was successful ; prob- 




ST. John's college gateway 



ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE 123 

ably most critics will admire the colonnades 
in themselves, but think them out of place 
where they are. Laud furnished the funds 
for Inigo Jones' work, but happily the pair 
excluded the Italian element from their 
Garden Front, which is certainly one of the 
most beautiful things in Oxford. Diverse 
as are the judgments which have been 
passed upon Laud's character and actions, 
there cannot be two opinions as to the 
beauty and fitness of this building, nor could 
any Head of a College desire a worthier 
memorial. Coming up to St. John's as a 
scholar in 1590, Laud became President in 
161 1, and on the completion of his new 
buildings had the honour of receiving King 
Charles i. and Queen Henrietta Maria as 
his guests. Full of stress as his life was, 
and tragic as was its end, his most peaceful 
hours were probably passed within the walls 
of the Foundation which his generosity did 
so much to adorn. His body, which had 
been buried in London after his execution, 
was brought to St. John's at the Restoration, 
and laid to rest, as he had desired, beneath 



i 



124 OXFORD 

the altar in the Chapel. The Library con- 
tains a valuable collection of ecclesiastical 
vestments which are said to be his gift. 

The third and fourth illustrations shew 
the north and south ends of the Garden 
Front. The open window in Mrs. Walton's 
sketch is that of the room occupied by Laud. 

The Garden is among the most delightful 
in Oxford ; and for beauty and diversity of 
flowers it certainly bears the palm. Like the 
garden at Wadham, it was formerly laid out 
in the stiff Dutch style. 

Sir Thomas White, the Founder, was a 
member of the Guild of Merchant Taylors ; 
and a considerable number of the scholar- 
ships are given to members of that 
Company's London school. 







PART OF ST. John's college, from garden 



JESUS COLLEGE 

JESUS COLLEGE since its birth in 1571 
has always been closely connected with 
Wales. Queen Elizabeth, who did not 
forget her Welsh ancestry, and ^'took no 
scorn," perhaps, "to wear the leek upon 
Saint Tavy's day," was willing to accept 
from Hugh Price, its actual originator, the 
honorary title of Founder. The College 
possesses three portraits of this sovereign, 
as well as pictures of Charles i. and Charles 
II. (who were benefactors). 

The buildings are in the late Gothic style. 
The two illustrations shew different aspects 
of the Front Quadrangle, which conveys an 
impression of beauty and restfulness. 

The Chapel is interesting. Above the 
entrance is a Latin inscription, signifying 
** May prayer ascend, may grace descend." 
Within are the tombs of Dr. Henry Maurice, 

125 



126 OXFORD 

Professor of Divinity, 1691 ; Sir Edward 
Stradling, a colonel in Charles i.'s army, 
1644; and several Principals of the 
College: — Dr. Francis Mansell, who held 
that office three times ; Sir Eubule Thelwall, 
Principal from 162 1 to 1630; and Sir Leoline 
Jenkins, appointed in 1661. First appointed 
in 1620, Dr. Mansell resigned the following 
year in favour of Thelwall, who had com- 
pleted the building of the College. His 
second term of office was cut short in 
Commonwealth days, but he was reinstated 
at the Restoration ; the only Head of a 
College, perhaps, who underwent such 
repeated vicissitudes. Sir Leoline Jenkins 
did much to repair the damages which the 
College suffered in the Civil Wars. 

The service in the Chapel on Wednesday 
and Friday evenings is entirely in the Welsh 
language. 

Distinguished members in the past of 
Jesus College were Henry Vaughan, the 
poet ; " Beau Nash," the arbiter of fashion in 
Bath ; Lloyd of St. Asaph, one of *' the Seven 
Bishops"; and J. R. Green, the historian. 



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CORNER OF JESUS COLLEGE QUADRANGLE 




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JESUS COLLEGE 127 

Were Sir Hugh Evans and Fluellen, those 
embodiments of Welsh humours, suggested 
by Jesus men ? We may think so, if we 
will ; for Shakespeare is known to have 
visited Oxford, and is quite as likely to have 
picked up his Welshmen there as anywhere 
else. 



WADHAM COLLEGE 

T T can only be conjectured how long the 
-■- vision of a stately building which, like 
Absalom's Pillar, should preserve the memory 
of his childless house, haunted the vacant 
hours of Nicholas Wadham of Merifield, in 
the county of Somerset. What is certain is 
that death cut short his day-dreams, and that 
he committed the accomplishment of his 
design to his wife Dorothy. This remark- 
able woman was seventy-five years of age 
when the task devolved upon her. She 
assumed its responsibilities to such good 
purpose that within three years the College 
which bears her name was completed. The 
members of the first Foundation were ad- 
mitted in 1613, and the Foundress lived some 
five years more. 

Wadham is one of the most perfect speci- 
mens of late Gothic architecture in existence. 
9 



130 OXFORD 

No alteration whatever has taken place in 
the Front Quadrangle since its erection ; only, 
where the stones have crumbled, they have 
been cunningly replaced. The Chapel, 
though Perpendicular, was erected at the 
same time as the other buildings. The late 
Mr. J. H. Parker made the reasonable 
suggestion that the architect desired to 
emphasise by this variation of style the 
religious and secular uses of the several 
structures. Wadham, whether viewed from 
Parks Road or from its own delightful 
gardens, is a veritable joy to the beholder, 
as our illustrations indicate. The Hall, more- 
over, which is one of the finest in Oxford 
and contains a large collection of portraits, 
should not be neglected, nor the interior of 
the Chapel, with the sombre grandeur of its 
stained windows and *' prophets blazoned on 
the panes." 

Wadham's early prosperity received a 
check in Civil War times, when its plate was 
melted down for the king and its Warden 
driven out by the Roundheads. Yet 
Wilkins, its new Warden, did not abuse his 



i: ,:* ^. 



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WADHAM COLLEGE 131 

trust ; and, thanks to his interest in science, 
it was within the walls of this College that 
the idea of the Royal Society was conceived. 
Wadham has not lacked famous members, 
of diverse professions and highly divergent 
opinions. There is Admiral Blake, whose 
statue watches to-day over his native 
B ridge water ; Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, 
who was made Master of Arts at fourteen ; 
Onslow, Speaker of the House of Commons ; 
Lord Westbury, whose inscription in the ante- 
chapel tells us that he ''dated all his success 
in life from the time when he was elected 
a scholar of Wadham at the age of fifteen " ; 
Dean Church among ecclesiastics and Dr. 
Congreve among Positivists. Finally, there 
is Sir Christopher Wren, whose name has 
been kept to the end in order that there may 
be coupled with it the name of Mr. T. G. 
Jackson, R.A. ; for these two architects, both 
sons of Wadham, have left impressions which 
deserve to be indelible upon the Oxford that 
we know. 



PEMBROKE COLLEGE 

PEMBROKE dates its collegiate life from 
-■■ 1624, but it had already existed and 
flourished for several centuries as Broadgates 
Hall. It owed its rise in the world to the 
benefactions of Thomas Tesdale and Richard 
Wightwick, burgesses of Abingdon, who 
desired to endow a College for the benefit of 
their native town, and its new name to the 
Earl of Pembroke, then Chancellor of 
Oxford. Thomas Browne, who was later to 
be the author of Religio Medici, being senior 
commoner of the Hall at this epoch, delivered 
a Latin oration at the opening ceremony, in 
which he did not fail to employ the metaphor 
of the Phoenix rising out of its ashes. 

Architecturally, Pembroke is a little put 
out of countenance by the neighbouring 
glories of Christ Church ; nevertheless, the 
interior of the Inner Quadrangle (** The Grass 

133 



134 OXFORD 

Quad.," as it is called), which is the subject of 
the first illustration, possesses an irregular 
but restful beauty. Up and down its stair- 
cases trod George Whitefield, who, as a 
servitor, had the ungrateful duty of seeing 
that the students were in their rooms at a 
fixed hour ; yet not one syllable of discontent 
with so humble a vocation disfigures the 
pages of his diary. On the right hand, as 
one enters the Front Quadrangle, is the 
Library, formerly the refectory of Broadgates 
Hall, and the only surviving part of that 
institution. The Chapel, renovated and 
decorated by Mr. C. E. Kempe in 1884, 
should be visited. The view of the gate- 
way possesses an added interest from the fact 
that Samuel Johnson, when an undergraduate 
of Pembroke, lodged in a room in the second 
storey over the entrance. Johnson ever 
retained an affection for his University and 
College, but it is to be feared that during his 
residence of fourteen months poverty and ill- 
health combined to make him far from 
happy. To others, perhaps, he appeared 
"gay and frolicsome," bent on entertaining 




PEMBROKE COLLEGE GA'l-EWAY 



PEMBROKE COLLEGE 135 

his companions and keeping them from their 
studies, but to Boswell he gave a different 
explanation. *' Ah, sir," he said, '' I was mad 
and violent. It was bitterness which they 
mistook for frolic. I was miserably poor, 
and I thought to fight my way by my 
literature and my wit, so I disregarded all 
power and all authority." In a more cheer- 
ful mood he spoke of Pembroke as **a nest 
of singing birds " ; and it is on record that 
he cut lectures to go sliding on Christ Church 
Meadow. Dr. Johnson is Pembroke's most 
famous son ; but she can also point to the 
names of Francis Beaumont, John Pym, 
Shenstone, Blackstone, and Birkbeck Hill, 
Boswell's greatest editor. 



WORCESTER COLLEGE 

WORCESTER COLLEGE is the 
successor to Gloucester Hall, a 
hostel of the Benedictine Order founded in 
the thirteenth century. This Hall was 
originally designed for students from the 
monastery at Gloucester, but was soon 
thrown open to other Benedictine houses. 
Suppressed at the Reformation, it was called 
back to life in Elizabeth's reign by Sir 
Thomas White, who had already shewn his 
zeal for education by founding St. John's 
College, and for several generations had a 
successful career. Among its distinguished 
members may be mentioned Thomas Allen, 
mathematician ; Sir Kenelm Digby, the 
romantic wooer of the brilliant and high- 
spirited Venetia Stanley ; and Richard 
Lovelace, the Cavalier poet. At the Restor- 
ation bad times came, and Gloucester Hall, 

137 



138 OXFORD 

like the earlier Hertford College of a sub- 
sequent age, seemed likely to perish of 
inanition. 

At this crisis there stepped in a bene- 
factor, Sir Thomas Crookes of Worcester- 
shire, with a bequest of ;^ 10,000; and the 
transformed Hall was known, from 1698 
onwards, as Worcester College. 

Worcester is comparatively at some 
distance from the other Colleges, a fact on 
which undergraduate humour loves to dwell ; 
but jests on this subject reflect rather on the 
poor walking powers of those who make 
them. At any rate, a *' well-girt" visitor to 
Oxford need not hesitate to take the journey, 
and will certainly find his pains rewarded, 
for Worcester has much to show that is of 
interest, and much that is beautiful. 

The first view gives the interior of the 
Front Quadrangle. The buildings here are 
stately and dignified, if a little cold ; they 
are obviously of the same date as those 
overlooking the deer-park of Magdalen, and 
suggest the genius of the eighteenth century. 

There could hardly be a greater contrast 




THE LAKE, WORCESTER GARDENS 



WORCESTER COLLEGE 139 

to these than the ancient structures which are 
at the left hand of the Quadrangle, as one 
enters ; for these old buildings take us back 
to the monastic days of Gloucester Hall. 
A glimpse of them, as viewed from the 
Garden, is given in the second illustration. 

The Garden itself is delightful, and has, 
alone of Oxford pleasances, the additional 
feature of a lake. Mr. Matthison's drawing 
shows how beautiful this lake and its 
surroundings can be, when the colours are 
newly laid on by the brush of summer. 




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HERTFORD COLLEGE 

TTERTFORD COLLEGE consists of 
-*•-*- an anomalous collection of buildings, 
of various styles and dates. The eye rests 
with most pleasure on the Jacobean part of 
the Quadrangle, opposite the gateway. One 
view gives the interior of the Quadrangle — 
in which is a sloping stairway reminiscent of a 
larger one of the same type in Blois Castle, 
the other shews the College from without, and 
includes the new buildings recently finished. 

This medley of structures is suggestive 
of the vicissitude through which the College 
has passed. 

So far back as the thirteenth century it 
was in existence as Hart Hall ; and here the 
students of Exeter and New College were 
successively lodged, while their own Colleges 
were building. Rightly or wrongly, Exeter 
College claimed the ownership of Hart Hall 
for four centuries ; but in 1 740 the then Prin- 



142 OXFORD 

cipalofthe Hall, Dr. Newton, was successful 
in asserting its independence, and Hart Hall 
became Hertford College. The endowments, 
however, were insignificant ; the members 
fell off and the walls (or a part of them) fell 
down; and in 1820 a commission declared 
that Hertford College no longer existed. 

About this time Magdalen Hall, which 
stood close to Magdalen College, was burned 
down, and the University allotted the build- 
ings of Hertford to its roofless inhabitants ; 
and the name of Hertford was changed to 
Magdalen Hall. 

The final transformation came in 1874, 
when Hertford College, its title revived by 
Act of Parliament, was endowed by Mr. 
Baring, the banker. Thus, with finances 
very different to the slender endowments of 
Dr. Newton's time, the College began a new 
era of prosperity. 

The famous Selden was at Hart Hall, and 
Charles James Fox at Hertford ; the old 
Magdalen Hall bred William Tyndale, Sir 
Matthew Hale, Lord Clarendon, and Thomas 
Hobbes, author of Leviathan, 



KEBLE COLLEGE 

]\ /TEMBERSHIP of this College is re- 
^^^ stricted to those who belong to the 
Church of England. Another primary 
purpose of Keble is to provide a less 
expensive education than that afforded 
by other Colleges. At the moment when 
the scheme was formulated died John Keble, 
author of the Christian Year, and it was 
decided to name the new foundation after 
him, at once as a tribute to his memory 
and in order to enlist the active sympathies 
of his many admirers. An appeal for funds 
met with a liberal and widespread response, 
and Keble College was opened in the 
Michaelmas term of 1870. 

The external appearance of Keble is not 
commonly admired. It is a pleasanter task 
to dwell for a moment on the beauty of the 
interior of the Chapel, which was presented 

143 



144 OXFORD 

by Mr. William Gibbs, and completed in 
1876. The visitor will be struck by the 
noble proportions of this edifice, its finely 
toned windows and its elaborate mosaics. 
A small ante-chapel contains Holman 
Hunt's celebrated picture — The Light of 
the World, presented by Mrs. Combe. 

Keble soon took its place among the 
other Colleges, both in work and play. It 
has a splendid Hall and Library, given by 
the Gibbs family. In accordance with the 
economy of the scheme, the rooms of the 
undergraduates are small, and all meals are 
taken in common in Hall. There is con- 
sequently more of the air of a public school 
about Keble than is looked for in ordinary 
College life. Its first warden. Dr. Talbot, 
is now Bishop of Southwark. 



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